Department of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA.
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2012 Aug 1;4(8):a007948. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a007948.
Wnt signaling is an evolutionarily ancient pathway used to regulate many events during metazoan development. Genetic results from Caenorhabditis elegans more than a dozen years ago suggested that Wnt signaling in this nematode worm might be different than in vertebrates and Drosophila: the worm had a small number of Wnts, too many β-catenins, and some Wnt pathway components functioned in an opposite manner than in other species. Work over the ensuing years has clarified that C. elegans does possess a canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway similar to that in other metazoans, but that the majority of Wnt signaling in this species may proceed via a variant Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway that uses some new components (mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling enzymes), and in which some conserved pathway components (β-catenin, T-cell factor [TCF]) are used in new and interesting ways. This review summarizes our current understanding of the canonical and novel TCF/β-catenin-dependent signaling pathways in C. elegans.
Wnt 信号通路是一种古老的进化途径，用于调节后生动物发育过程中的许多事件。十多年前，秀丽隐杆线虫的遗传研究结果表明，这种线虫中的 Wnt 信号通路可能与脊椎动物和果蝇不同：线虫的 Wnt 数量较少，β-连环蛋白数量过多，一些 Wnt 通路成分的作用方式与其他物种相反。此后的研究工作已经阐明，秀丽隐杆线虫确实拥有与其他后生动物相似的经典 Wnt/β-连环蛋白信号通路，但该物种的大多数 Wnt 信号可能通过一种变体的 Wnt/β-连环蛋白信号通路进行，该通路使用一些新的成分（丝裂原活化蛋白激酶信号酶），并且一些保守的通路成分（β-连环蛋白、T 细胞因子 [TCF]）以新的和有趣的方式被使用。本文综述了我们目前对线虫中经典和新型 TCF/β-连环蛋白依赖性信号通路的理解。
