Latrophilin signaling links anterior-posterior tissue polarity and oriented cell divisions in the C. elegans embryo.
Understanding the mechanisms that coordinate the orientation of cell division planes during embryogenesis and morphogenesis is a fundamental problem in developmental biology. Here we show that the orphan receptor lat-1, a homolog of vertebrate latrophilins, plays an essential role in the establishment of tissue polarity in the C. elegans embryo. We provide evidence that lat-1 is required for the alignment of cell division planes to the anterior-posterior axis and acts in parallel to known polarity and morphogenesis signals. lat-1 is a member of the Adhesion-GPCR protein family and is structurally related to flamingo/CELSR, an essential component of the planar cell polarity pathway. We dissect the molecular requirements of lat-1 signaling and implicate lat-1 in an anterior-posterior tissue polarity pathway in the premorphogenesis stage of C. elegans development.
Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QU, UK.
Tobias
T
Langenhan
Simone
S
Prömel
Lamia
L
Mestek
Behrooz
B
Esmaeili
Helen
H
Waller-Evans
Christian
C
Hennig
Yuji
Y
Kohara
Leon
L
Avery
Ioannis
I
Vakonakis
Ralf
R
Schnabel
Andreas P
AP
Russ
D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D002455:Cell Division; D016764:Cell Polarity; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D047108:Embryonic Development; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D017403:In Situ Hybridization; D009866:Oogenesis; D038081:Organogenesis; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000494:pharmacology; D018000:Receptors, Peptide / Q000502:physiology*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D008941:Spindle Apparatus / Q000502:physiology*
D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D018000:Receptors, Peptide; C483879:lat-1 protein, C elegans