Background: Signaling by the Wnt family of secreted glycoproteins through their receptors, the frizzled (Fz) family of seven-pass transmembrane proteins, is critical for numerous cell fate and tissue polarity decisions during development. Results: We report a novel role of Wnt signaling in organogenesis using the formation of the islet during pancreatic development as a model tissue. We used the advantages of the zebrafish to visualize and document this process in living embryos and demonstrated that insulin-positive cells actively migrate to form an islet. We used morpholinos (MOs), sequence-specific translational inhibitors, and time-lapse imaging analysis to show that the Wnt-5 ligand and the Fz-2 receptor are required for proper insulin-cell migration in zebrafish. Histological analyses of islets in Wnt5a-/- mouse embryos showed that Wnt5a signaling is also critical for murine pancreatic insulin-cell migration. Conclusions: Our results implicate a conserved role of a Wnt 5/Fz2 signaling pathway in islet formation during pancreatic development. This study opens the door for further investigation into a role of Wnt signaling in vertebrate organ development and disease. © 2005 Kim et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
CITATION STYLE
Kim, H. J., Schleiffarth, J. R., Jessurun, J., Sumanas, S., Petryk, A., Lin, S., & Ekker, S. C. (2005). Wnt5 signaling in vertebrate pancreas development. BMC Biology, 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-3-23
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