BACKGROUND Rab23, a member of the Rab family of small GTPase, has a function in antagonizing sonic hedgehog signal transduction. Both Rab-family and hedgehog-related proteins are involved in sclerosis and fibrosis in certain pathological states, but their roles in focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) remain unclear. METHODS The FSGS model was established in Balb/c mice by a single inject...

BACKGROUND Medulloblastomas are malignant childhood brain tumors that arise due to the aberrant activity of developmental pathways during postnatal cerebellar development and in adult humans. Transcriptome analysis has identified four major medulloblastoma subgroups. One of them, the Sonic hedgehog (SHH) subgroup, is caused by aberrant Hedgehog signal transduction due to mutations in the Patche...

background: ixodid ticks (acari: i̇xodidae) and fleas (siphonaptera) are the major vectors of pathogens threatening animals and human healths. the aim of our study was to detect the infestation rates of east hedgehogs ( erinaceus concolor ) with ticks and fleas in van province, eastern region of turkey. methods: we examined fleas and ticks infestation patterns in 21 hedgehogs, collected from thr...

The Wnt and Hedgehog signaling pathways are essential for normal development and are misregulated in cancer. The casein kinase family of serine/threonine kinases regulates both pathways at multiple levels. However, it has been difficult to determine whether individual members of this family have distinct functions in vivo, due to their overlapping substrate specificities. In Drosophila melanoga...

The vertebrate Scube family consists of three independent members Scube1-3; which encode secreted cell surface-associated membrane glycoproteins that share a domain organization of at least five recognizable motifs and the ability to both homo- and heterodimerize. There is recent biochemical evidence to suggest that Scube2 is directly involved in Hedgehog signaling, acting co-operatively with D...

The hedgehog (Hh) family of morphogens plays important instructional roles in the development of numerous metazoan structures. Consistent with the role Hh homologs play in cell fate determination, aberrant Hh signaling results in numerous human pathologies. Hh signal transduction is initiated when Hh binds to its receptor Patched (Ptc), activating the transmembrane protein Smoothened (Smo). Smo...

The Wnt and Hedgehog signaling pathways are essential for normal development and are misregulated in cancer. The casein kinase family of serine/threonine kinases regulates both pathways at multiple levels. However, it has been difficult to determine whether individual members of this family have distinct functions in vivo, due to their overlapping substrate specificities. In Drosophila melanoga...

Heparan sulfate (HS) proteoglycans (PGs) interact with a number of extracellular signaling proteins, thereby playing an essential role in the regulation of many physiological processes. These interactions are important for both normal signal transduction and regulation of the tissue distribution of signaling molecules. In this study, we use surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to study interactions ...

During development, extracellular cues guiding cell fate determination are provided by morphogens. One mechanism by which morphogens are proposed to traverse extracellular space is by traveling along specialized filopodia called cytonemes. These cellular highways extend between signal-producing and -receiving cells to enable direct morphogen delivery. Although genetic studies support cytoneme i...

The secreted molecule Sonic hedgehog (Shh) is crucial for floor plate and ventral brain development in amniote embryos. In zebrafish, mutations in cyclops (cyc), a gene that encodes a distinct signal related to the TGF(beta) family member Nodal, result in neural tube defects similar to those of shh null mice. cyc mutant embryos display cyclopia and lack floor plate and ventral brain regions, su...