Structure-function relationships and evolution of wnt signaling molecules

Wnt信号分子的结构-功能关系和进化

• 批准号: 88409561
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Suat Özbek
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Forschungsgruppe Molekulare Evolution und Genomik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Units
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2008-12-31 至 2011-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/88409561?language=en
• 关键词: Structure; function; relationships; evolution; wnt

Wnt ligands comprise a large family of secreted, hydrophobic glycoproteins that control a variety of developmental and adult processes in all metazoan organisms. Although Wnt signaling processes are increasingly understood at the cellular level, our knowledge of the molecular structures of Wnt ligands, receptors and antagonists is very limited. Information about structure-function relationships in Wnt signaling molecules is supposed to be critical for a detailed understanding of ligand/receptor interactions and for the design of novel agonistic or antagonistic ligands. Cnidarians have proven attractive model organisms for the research on Wnt signaling due to their simple body plan, easy manipulation and evolutionary impact. In addition, a complete set of Wnt signaling molecules has been isolated from a cnidarian species. For our structure-function analysis we have therefore chosen both, canonical and non-canonical Wnt proteins as well as dickkopf (dkk) molecules from Hydra and vertebrates (mouse) in an effort to retrace the molecular evolution of these proteins.

Wnt配体包括一个大家族的分泌，疏水性糖蛋白，控制各种发育和成年过程中的所有后生动物生物体。虽然Wnt信号传导过程在细胞水平上越来越多地被理解，但我们对Wnt配体、受体和拮抗剂的分子结构的了解非常有限。关于Wnt信号分子的结构-功能关系的信息对于详细了解配体/受体相互作用和设计新的激动或拮抗配体是至关重要的。刺胞动物由于其简单的体型、易操作性和进化影响力，已被证明是研究Wnt信号传导的有吸引力的模式生物。此外，一套完整的Wnt信号分子已经从刺胞动物物种中分离出来。因此，对于我们的结构-功能分析，我们选择了来自水螅和脊椎动物（小鼠）的经典和非经典Wnt蛋白以及dickkopf（dkk）分子，以追溯这些蛋白的分子进化。