1. Wnt/β-catenin signaling requires interaction of the Dishevelled DEP domain and C terminus with a discontinuous motif in Frizzled.
- Author
-
Tauriello DV, Jordens I, Kirchner K, Slootstra JW, Kruitwagen T, Bouwman BA, Noutsou M, Rüdiger SG, Schwamborn K, Schambony A, and Maurice MM
- Subjects
- Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing chemistry, Amino Acid Sequence, Cell Line, Dishevelled Proteins, Fluorescence Polarization, Frizzled Receptors chemistry, Humans, Microscopy, Confocal, Molecular Sequence Data, Phosphoproteins chemistry, Protein Binding, Xenopus Proteins, Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing metabolism, Frizzled Receptors metabolism, Phosphoproteins metabolism, Signal Transduction, Wnt Proteins metabolism, beta Catenin metabolism
- Abstract
Wnt binding to members of the seven-span transmembrane Frizzled (Fz) receptor family controls essential cell fate decisions and tissue polarity during development and in adulthood. The Fz-mediated membrane recruitment of the cytoplasmic effector Dishevelled (Dvl) is a critical step in Wnt/β-catenin signaling initiation, but how Fz and Dvl act together to drive downstream signaling events remains largely undefined. Here, we use an Fz peptide-based microarray to uncover a mechanistically important role of the bipartite Dvl DEP domain and C terminal region (DEP-C) in binding a three-segmented discontinuous motif in Fz. We show that cooperative use of two conserved motifs in the third intracellular loop and the classic C-terminal motif of Fz is required for DEP-C binding and Wnt-induced β-catenin activation in cultured cells and Xenopus embryos. Within the complex, the Dvl DEP domain mainly binds the Fz C-terminal tail, whereas a short region at the Dvl C-terminal end is required to bind the Fz third loop and stabilize the Fz-Dvl interaction. We conclude that Dvl DEP-C binding to Fz is a key event in Wnt-mediated signaling relay to β-catenin. The discontinuous nature of the Fz-Dvl interface may allow for precise regulation of the interaction in the control of Wnt-dependent cellular responses.
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF