Propagation of dachsous-fat planar cell polarity

Abhijit A. Ambegaonkar, Guohui Pan, Madhav Mani, Yongqiang Feng, Kenneth D. Irvine*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

91 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Fat pathway controls both planar cell polarity (PCP) and organ growth [1, 2]. Fat signaling is regulated by the graded expression of the Fat ligand Dachsous (Ds) and the cadherin-domain kinase Four-jointed (Fj). The vectors of these gradients influence PCP [1], whereas their slope can influence growth [3, 4]. The Fj and Ds gradients direct the polarized membrane localization of the myosin Dachs, which is a crucial downstream component of Fat signaling [5-7]. Here we show that repolarization of Dachs by differential expression of Fj or Ds can propagate through the wing disc, which indicates that Fj and Ds gradients can be measured over long range. Through characterization of tagged genomic constructs, we show that Ds and Fat are themselves partially polarized along the endogenous Fj and Ds gradients, providing a mechanism for propagation of PCP within the Fat pathway. We also identify a biochemical mechanism that might contribute to this polarization by showing that Ds is subject to endoproteolytic cleavage and that the relative levels of Ds isoforms are modulated by Fat.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1302-1308
Number of pages7
JournalCurrent Biology
Volume22
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 24 2012

Funding

We thank the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank, the Bloomington Stock Center, and Mike Simon for antibodies and Drosophila stocks; Binnaz Staley for the UAS-Dachs:Cit plasmid; and Cordelia Rauskolb for Figure 1 E and Figures S3 A and S3B and for comments on the manuscript. This research was supported by National Institutes of Health grant 2R01GM078620 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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