An ancient role for nuclear |[beta]|-catenin in the evolution of axial polarity and germ layer segregation

The human oncogene β-catenin is a bifunctional protein with critical roles in both cell adhesion and transcriptional regulation in the Wnt pathway. Wnt/β-catenin signalling has been implicated in developmental processes as diverse as elaboration of embryonic polarity, formation of germ layers, neural patterning, spindle orientation and gap junction communication, but the ancestral function of β-catenin remains unclear.

, , , , , , &

To read this article in full you may need to log in, make a payment or gain access through a site license (see right).