Homologues of Twisted gastrulation are extracellular cofactors in antagonism of BMP signalling

Ian C. Scott, Ira L. Blitz, William N. Pappano, Sarah A. Maas, Ken W. Y. Cho and Daniel S. Greenspan ()
Additional contact information
Ian C. Scott: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Ira L. Blitz: University of California
William N. Pappano: University of Wisconsin Medical School
Sarah A. Maas: University of Wisconsin Medical School
Ken W. Y. Cho: University of California
Daniel S. Greenspan: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Nature, 2001, vol. 410, issue 6827, 475-478

Abstract: Abstract Twisted gastrulation (TSG) is involved in specifying the dorsal-most cell fate in Drosophila embryos1, but its mechanism of action is poorly understood. TSG has been proposed to modify the action of Short gastrulation (SOG), thereby increasing signalling by the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) Decapentaplegic. SOG, an inhibitor of BMP signalling, is in turn inactivated by the protease Tolloid2,3. Here we identify Tsg gene products from human, mouse, Xenopus, zebrafish and chick. Expression patterns in mouse and Xenopus embryos are consistent with in vivo interactions between Tsg, BMPs and the vertebrate SOG orthologue, chordin. We show that Tsg binds both the vertebrate Decapentaplegic orthologue BMP4 and chordin, and that these interactions have multiple effects. Tsg increases chordin's binding of BMP4, potentiates chordin's ability to induce secondary axes in Xenopus embryos, and enhances chordin cleavage by vertebrate tolloid-related proteases at a site poorly used in Tsg's absence; also, the presence of Tsg enhances the secondary axis-inducing activity of two products of chordin cleavage. We conclude that Tsg acts as a cofactor in chordin's antagonism of BMP signalling.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35068572 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:410:y:2001:i:6827:d:10.1038_35068572

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35068572

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().