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RESEARCH COMMUNICATION
1 Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program, and Diabetes Center, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-0525, USA; 2 Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
| Abstract |
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[Keywords: Shh; signal transduction; mouse development; neural patterning; open brain]
Received August 9, 2005; revised version accepted November 2, 2005.
| Results and Discussion |
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To assess whether Tectonic is secreted as predicted, we created a fusion between the putative Tectonic signal peptide and alkaline phosphatase. This fusion is robustly secreted by Cos7 cells, indicating that the signal peptide is functional (Supplementary Fig. 2). Interestingly, full-length Tectonic is not secreted by Cos7 cells, suggesting that its secretion may be regulated.
Insertion of the gene trap vector in Tectonic occurs in the first of 12 introns (Fig. 1A). The resultant mutant allele encodes a fusion between the first 57 amino acids of Tectonic and a membrane-spanning
geo reporter (Mitchell et al. 2001
). Given that no wild-type transcript is detectable in Tectonic mutants by RTPCR and Northern blot analyses (Fig. 1B,C), and that transmembrane
geo fusion proteins are retained in intracellular compartments (Skarnes et al. 1995
), the Tectonic gene trap is likely to be a null allele.
During embryonic development, Tectonic is expressed in regions that participate in Hh signaling. Tectonic is first expressed during gastrulation stages in the ventral node (Fig. 1D,E). At embryonic day 9.5 (E9.5), Tectonic is expressed in the gut endoderm, limb buds, notochord, somites, neural tube and floorplate (Fig. 1F). Unlike regulators of Hh signaling such as Ptch and Hhip (Goodrich et al. 1996
; Marigo and Tabin 1996
; Chuang and McMahon 1999
), Tectonic is not a transcriptional target of Hh signaling (Supplementary Fig. 3B,C).
Tectonic mutants die between E13.5 and E16.5 and display holoprosencephaly (Fig. 1G), a defect associated with reduced Hh signaling (Chiang et al. 1996
). Shh mediates induction of the floorplate, a histologically distinct cell population at the ventral midline of the neural tube. Like Shh mutants and Gli2 mutants (Chiang et al. 1996
; Ding et al. 1998
; Matise et al. 1998
), Tectonic mutants fail to form floorplates and, instead, cells of neural morphology are present at the midline (Fig. 2A). Molecular analysis with the markers Shh and FoxA2 (Hnf3
) confirms that Tectonic is required for floorplate formation (Figs. 2B, 3B). However, the notochord forms normally in Tectonic mutants as judged by Shh and Brachyury expression (Fig. 2B; Supplementary Fig. 3D). Thus, axial defects in Tectonic mutants are confined to the floorplate.
In addition to the floorplate, high levels of Hh signaling are required for the induction of the adjoining V3 interneurons (Litingtung and Chiang 2000
; Wijgerde et al. 2002
). Analysis of neural tube patterning reveals that, like Shh, Tectonic is required for formation of the Sim1-expressing V3 interneurons (Fig. 2C). Nkx2.2, a marker of the progenitors of the V3 interneurons (Briscoe et al. 1999
), is also lost in Tectonic mutants (Fig. 3C), suggesting that these defects are not due to defects in neuronal maturation, but in their specification. Moreover, the Tectonic-dependent defects in ventral neural development are not limited to the V3 interneurons. Tectonic mutants also display a variable reduction in the number of Islet1/2-positive motor neurons (Fig. 3D). However, Tectonic is not required for the expression of Dbx1 or Dbx2 (Fig. 2D; data not shown), indicating that Tectonic function is not essential for the development of more dorsal cell fates within the neural tube.
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To test this hypothesis, we examined the expression of Gli1 and Ptch, two general Hh transcriptional targets. Significantly, Gli1 expression is reduced throughout Tectonic mutant embryos at E9.5 (Fig. 2F). In the developing neural tube of Tectonic mutants, expression of Gli1 and Ptch is similarly dramatically reduced (Fig. 2G,H). Hh signaling in the neural tube is antagonized by Bmp activity (Barth et al. 1999
; Kawakami et al. 2005
). Expression of Msx1, a readout of Bmp pathway activity in the dorsal neural tube (Liu et al. 2004
), is normal in Tectonic mutants (Supplementary Fig. 4), suggesting that Tectonic does not influence Hh signaling indirectly by altering Bmp activity. Together, these results argue that Tectonic acts in neural patterning by positively regulating the Hh pathway.
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Like Ptch, Rab23 is a negative regulator of the Hh pathway (Eggenschwiler et al. 2001
; Huangfu et al. 2003
). Embryos homozygous for the opb2 mutation in Rab23 display a ventralized neural tube (Fig. 3E,F; Eggenschwiler and Anderson 2000
). As with Ptch, embryos mutant for both Rab23 and Tectonic display neural tube patterning defects identical to those of Tectonic single mutants (Fig. 3E,F). Together, these results indicate that Tectonic is epistatic to both Ptch and Rab23. As Rab23 has been reported to act downstream of Smo (Huangfu et al. 2003
), these data suggest that Tectonic modulates Hh transduction at a point downstream of Ptch, Smo, and Rab23.
To investigate whether the Tectonic-mediated effects on neural tube patterning reflect changes in Hh pathway activity, we assayed the expression of Gli1 in Tectonic Ptch double mutants (Fig. 3G). Loss of Ptch function causes ectopic expression of high levels of Gli1 in the dorsal neural tube. In contrast, Tectonic Ptch double mutants display uniform low levels of Gli1 expression (Fig. 3G). These data confirm that Tectonic is essential for maximal activation of the Hh pathway. Furthermore, our results strongly suggest that Tectonic functions downstream of both Ptch and Rab23 in the Hh signal transduction pathway, and not in Hh production or release. Consistent with this conclusion, Shh protein is distributed in a dorsoventral gradient in Tectonic mutant neural tubes similar to that of wild-type neural tubes (Supplementary Fig. 5).
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The loss of the activator function can be depicted as a rightward shift in the Hh pathway activity gradient of Tectonic mutants (Fig. 4E). Our additional finding that Tectonic inhibits Hh pathway activation in the absence of Shh can be represented graphically as a leftward shift in the Hh pathway activity gradient of Tectonic Shh double mutants relative to Shh mutants (Fig. 4E). This evidence that Tectonic functions in Hh signal transduction to fully activate the pathway in the presence of high Hh levels and to repress the pathway in the absence of Hh signals may reflect a combination of decreased function of both Gli activators and Gli repressors. In this regard, Tectonic joins a number of recently described regulators of Hh signal transduction including mouse IFT proteins (Huangfu et al. 2003
; Liu et al. 2005
) and zebrafish Iguana (Sekimizu et al. 2004
; Wolff et al. 2004
). Additionally, a Drosophila protein complex that includes Cos2 is similarly required for full pathway activation (Robbins et al. 1997
; Sisson et al. 1997
; Wang and Holmgren 2000
; Wang et al. 2000
; Lefers et al. 2001
) and inhibition (Methot and Basler 2000
; Stegman et al. 2000
; Wang et al. 2000
; Lefers et al. 2001
). Tectonic is the first extracytosolic factor shown to act in this dual capacity.
Although the molecular mechanism by which Tectonic functions is not clear, our double mutant analyses suggest that it modulates Hh signal transduction at a point fairly downstream in the pathway. As Rab23 acts in the same region of the pathway and is thought to control vesicle transport, it will be interesting to assess whether it regulates the trafficking of Tectonic.
| Materials and methods |
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The mouse embryonic stem cell line KST296 carrying an insertion of the pGT1pfs secretory trap vector in the Tectonic gene was isolated as described in Mitchell et al. (2001
). Tectonic F1 heterozygotes were backcrossed to C57Bl/6 mice for six generations prior to intercrossing. Genotyping of Tectonic was performed using genomic PCR with a pair of wild-type-specific primers (5'-CGCCTCTTTAGCCCTCTGTT-3' and 5'-AGAACCTCCACGAGAGCAGA-3') and a mutant-allele-specific primer (5'-TCTAGGACAAGAGGGCGAGA-3'). Ptch, Rab23, Shh, and Smo embryos were genotyped as described (Chiang et al. 1996
; Goodrich et al. 1997
; Eggenschwiler et al. 2001
; Zhang et al. 2001
).
Secretion assays
Cos7 cells were transfected using Fugene6 (Roche) with APTag5 (Gen-Hunter) or APTag5-TectSignal, a vector in which the SEAP signal sequence has been replaced with that of Tectonic. Alkaline phosphatase activity in the supernatant was chemiluminescently measured using the Phospha-Light Assay (Applied Biosystems) and a 20/20n luminometer (Turner BioSystems).
RTPCR and Northern blot analyses
RTPCR was performed using exon-spanning primers complementary to Tectonic cDNA 3' to the gene trap insertion (5'-AATCCGCTGTTCC TTCCAC-3' and 5'-TGCGTCAGTGTGTGATTCAG-3'), to the
GEO transcript (5'-CTTGGGTGGAGAGGCTATTC-3' and 5'-AGGTGAG ATGACAGGAGATC-3'), and to G3PD (5'-GTGTTCCTACCCCCAAT GTG-3' and 5'-TGTGAGGGAGATGCTCAGTG-3'). Northern blots were hybridized to a Tectonic cDNA probe spanning exons 212 and a probe to
geo.
Immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization
X-gal staining, in situ hybridization, and immunohistochemical staining were carried out using antibodies and protocols as previously described (Ericson et al. 1997
; Briscoe et al. 1999
, 2000
; Takebayashi et al. 2000
; Gritli-Linde et al. 2001
) with the exception of rabbit
-Pax6 antibody (Covance Research Products), which was used at 1:300. The
-FoxA2,
-Nkx2.2,
-Islet1/2,
-Msx1/2, and
-Pax3 antibodies were obtained from the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank maintained by the University of Iowa under contract NO1-HD-7-3263 from the NICHD.
Gene analysis and accession numbers
Sequences of Tectonic family members were aligned using ClustalW and Boxshade 3.21. Domain analysis was performed with SignalP 3.0 and HMMTOP 2.0. Mouse Tectonic cDNA sequence, GenBank accession number DQ278867 [GenBank] ; human Tectonic cDNA sequence, GenBank accession number DQ278868 [GenBank] ; mouse Tect2 cDNA sequence, GenBank accession number DQ278869 [GenBank] ; human Tect2 cDNA sequence, GenBank accession number DQ278870 [GenBank] ; mouse Tect3 cDNA sequence, GenBank accession number DQ278871 [GenBank] ; human Tect3 cDNA sequence, GenBank accession number DQ278872 [GenBank] ; Drosophila dTectonic cDNA sequence, GenBank accession number DQ278873 [GenBank] .
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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Article published online ahead of print. Article and publication date are at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1363606.
E-MAIL jreiter{at}diabetes.ucsf.edu; FAX (415) 514-2346. ![]()
3 Present address: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, United Kingdom. ![]()
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