Endocrine Abstracts

The long range objective of my laboratory is to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which signaling pathways and downstream transcription factors coordinate the specification of adrenocortical cells within the adrenal gland in health and disease. Recent efforts examine the hypothesis that Wnt/βcatenin signaling maintains the functional capacity of the adrenal cortex though the regulation of undifferentiated adrenocortical cell fate. Dysregulation of this s...

An intriguing connection between classical GPCR signalling and the regulation of β-catenin activity has emerged in recent years. To date, the FPB prostanoid, lysophosphatidic acid, M1 muscarinic acetylcholine, and thromboxane A2/TPα GPCRs have been demonstrated to target β-catenin transcriptional activity. β-catenin has a well-established role as a key effector of the canonical Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway, where it acts as a ...

Wnt ligands are secreted proteins that bind to Frizzled receptors. During normal development Wnt signalling plays essential roles in the regulation of patterning, fate determination, and cell proliferation. In the ‘canonical’ Wnt/ß-catenin signalling pathway, binding of Wnt ligand to Frizzled and LRP5 receptors normally leads to inhibition of a ‘destruction complex’ consisting of APC/Axin/GSK-3ß/Ck1/Dvl and other factors, with subsequent accumulat...

Wnt signaling has well-established roles in gonadal development, notably being required for proper sex determination. More recently, a series of descriptive studies has shown the expression of various Wnts and Wnt signaling pathway components in adult ovaries during different stages of follicular development. To determine the potential role of WNT4 in follicle development, a mouse strain bearing a floxed Wnt4 allele was created using standard gene targeting techniques, ...