Several lines of evidence point to the central role of WNT signaling in the initiation of intestinal tumorigenesis, most often due to loss of APC, a negative regulator of the WNT-betaCATENIN/TCF pathway. Modeling human colon cancers in mice through loss of Apc has shown that inappropriate activation of Wnt signaling is sufficient to induce adenoma formation. More recent analyses have also demon...

The past decade has witnessed a sudden surge in the obesity prevalence worldwide. Obesity has been linked to several chronic metabolic disorders including diabetes, hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis. Due to this there is an immense interest in understanding the intricate aspects of adipogenesis, specifically pertaining to the study of the mechanisms through which various signaling pathways reg...

Bone sarcomas such as osteosarcoma and chondrosarcoma are frequently refractory to conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy that exhibit poor prognosis. The Wnt signaling are evolutionarily conserved and implicated in cell proliferation and sarcomagenesis. However, the potential role of the Wnt signaling in bone sarcomas is still unclear. Here we demonstrate aberrant activation of Wnt/β-caten...

Emerging evidence indicates that Wnt signaling regulates crucial aspects of cardiovascular biology (including cardiac morphogenesis, and the self-renewal and differentiation of cardiac progenitor cells). The ability of Wnt signaling to regulate such diverse aspects of cardiovascular development rests on the multifarious downstream and tangential targets affected by this pathway. Here, we discus...

Transforming growth factor beta1 (TGF-beta1) is a potent fibrotic factor responsible for the synthesis of extracellular matrix. TGF-beta1 acts through the TGF-beta type I and type II receptors to activate intracellular mediators, such as Smad proteins, the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), and the extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathway. We expressed the kinase domain of the TG...

Prostate cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men worldwide. Little is known about the role of primary cilia in preinvasive and invasive prostate cancer. However, reduced cilia expression has been observed in human cancers including pancreatic cancer, renal cell carcinoma, breast cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, and melanoma. The aim of this study was to characterize primary cilia ...

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive lung disorder of unknown etiology. Previous studies have shown that aberrant activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling cascade occurs in lungs of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Given the important roles of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in the development of pulmonary fibrosis, we targeted this pathway for the intervention of pul...

Precise control of the canonical Wnt pathway is crucial in embryogenesis and all stages of life, and dysregulation of this pathway is implicated in many human diseases including cancers and birth defect disorders. A key aspect of canonical Wnt signaling is the cytoplasmic to nuclear translocation of β-catenin, a process that remains incompletely understood. Here we report the identification of ...

The β4 isoform of the β-subunits of voltage-gated calcium channel regulates cell proliferation and cell cycle progression. Herein we show that coexpression of the β4-subunit with actors of the canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in a hepatoma cell line inhibits Wnt-responsive gene transcription and decreases cell division, in agreement with the role of the Wnt pathway in cell proliferatio...

Wnt proteins are a family of secreted proteins that regulate many aspects of cell growth, differentiation, function, and death. Considerable progress has been made in our understanding of the molecular links between Wnt signaling and bone development and remodeling since initial reports that mutations in the Wnt coreceptor low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 5 (LRP5) are causally l...