First Author | Sussman DJ | Year | 1994 |
Journal | Dev Biol | Volume | 166 |
Issue | 1 | Pages | 73-86 |
PubMed ID | 7958461 | Mgi Jnum | J:21483 |
Mgi Id | MGI:69445 | Doi | 10.1006/dbio.1994.1297 |
Citation | Sussman DJ, et al. (1994) Isolation and characterization of a mouse homolog of the Drosophila segment polarity gene dishevelled. Dev Biol 166(1):73-86 |
abstractText | In the Drosophila embryo dishevelled (dsh) function is required by target cells in order to respond to wingless (wg, the homolog of Wnt-1), demonstrating a role for dsh in Wnt signal transduction. We have isolated a mouse homolog of the Drosophila dsh segment polarity gene. The 695-amino-acid protein encoded by the mouse dishevelled gene (Dvl-1) shares 50% identity (65% similarity) with dsh. Similarity searches of protein and DNA data bases revealed that Dvl-1 encodes an otherwise novel polypeptide. While no functional motifs were identified, one region of Dvl-1 was found to be similar to a domain of discs large-1 (dlg), a Drosophila tumor suppressor gene. In the embryo, Dvl-1 is expressed in most tissues, with uniformly high levels in the central nervous system. From 7.5 days postcoitum Dvl-1 is expressed throughout the developing brain and spinal cord, including those regions expressing Wnt-1 and En. Expression of Dvl-1 in adult mice was found to be widespread, with brain and testis exhibiting the highest levels. The majority of Dvl-1 expression in the adult cerebellum is in the granular cell layer, similar to the pattern seen for engrailed-2 (En-2). Throughout postnatal development of the brain Dvl-1 is highly expressed in areas of high neuronal cell density. |