Wnt-induced Cell Responses
Several important effects of the canonical Wnt pathway include:
- Cancers. Alterations of Wnts, APC, axin, and TCFs are all associated with carcinogenesis.
- Body axis specification. Ectopic placement of Wnt in Xenopus eggs during early gastrulation gives rise to a secondary body axis and head, while inhibition of Wnt signaling results in a lack of dorsal structures in the frog embryo. Wnt is extensively involved in the formation of dorsal structures and the nervous system in early frog development and is found in high concentrations in the region known as Spemann's Organizer.
- Morphogenic signaling. Wnts produced from specific sites, such as the edge of the developing fly wing or the dorsal region of the neural tube of the developing vertebrate, are distributed throughout adjacent tissues in a gradient fashion. The Wnt pathway becomes activated to different degrees in cells of these tissues depending on how close they are to the production site, leading to subtle but crucial differences in the level of genes regulated by the Wnt pathway.
- Induction of Insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS-1). IRS-1 induction activates mitochondrial biogenesis leading to increased oxidative damage, depletion of stem cells, and predisposition to some types of cancer.
Read more about this topic: Wnt Signaling Pathway
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