The Wnt signalling cascade is a highly conserved signalling pathway throughout the animal kingdom. In Xenopus, Wnt signalling functions in mesodermal dorsoventral patterning. Earlier work on deciphering the components of the wnt signalling cascade left a gap between cytosolic beta-catenin, the final member of the cascade, and the nuclear target genes. Several recent papers now reveal how the Wnt signal is transmitted into the nucleus. Surprisingly, beta-catenin directly interacts with the transcription factor LEF-1/XTCF-3, and thereby is not only translocated into the nucleus but also modulates the properties of LEF-1/XTCF-3 as a transcription factor.
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Kühl et al. (1997) studied this question.
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