Six3 Repression of Wnt Signaling in the Anterior Neuroectoderm is Essential for Vertebrate Forebrain Development

Overview

Journal Genes Dev

Specialty Molecular Biology

Date 2003 Feb 6

PMID 12569128

Citations 193

Authors

Oleg V Lagutin

Changqi C Zhu

Daisuke Kobayashi

Jacek Topczewski

Kenji Shimamura

Luis Puelles

Helen R C Russell

Peter J McKinnon

Lilianna Solnica-Krezel

Guillermo Oliver

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

In vertebrate embryos, formation of anterior neural structures requires suppression of Wnt signals emanating from the paraxial mesoderm and midbrain territory. In Six3(-/-) mice, the prosencephalon was severely truncated, and the expression of Wnt1 was rostrally expanded, a finding that indicates that the mutant head was posteriorized. Ectopic expression of Six3 in chick and fish embryos, together with the use of in vivo and in vitro DNA-binding assays, allowed us to determine that Six3 is a direct negative regulator of Wnt1 expression. These results, together with those of phenotypic rescue of headless/tcf3 zebrafish mutants by mouse Six3, demonstrate that regionalization of the vertebrate forebrain involves repression of Wnt1 expression by Six3 within the anterior neuroectoderm. Furthermore, these results support the hypothesis that a Wnt signal gradient specifies posterior fates in the anterior neural plate.

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