1. Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, Box 1020, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, New York 10029, USA

Correspondence to: Sergei Y. Sokol¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.Y.S. (Email: sergei.sokol@mssm.edu).

Abstract

The establishment of polarity in many cell types depends on Lgl, the tumour suppressor product of lethal giant larvae, which is involved in basolateral protein targeting^{1, 2, 3, 4}. The conserved complex of Par3, Par6 and atypical protein kinase C^{5, 6, 7, 8} phosphorylates and inactivates Lgl at the apical surface; however, the signalling mechanisms that coordinate cell polarization in development are not well defined. Here we show that a vertebrate homologue of Lgl associates with Dishevelled, an essential mediator of Wnt signalling, and that Dishevelled regulates the localization of Lgl in Xenopus ectoderm and Drosophila follicular epithelium. We show that both Lgl and Dsh are required for normal apical–basal polarity of Xenopus ectodermal cells. In addition, we show that the Wnt receptor Frizzled 8, but not Frizzled 7, causes Lgl to dissociate from the cortex with the concomitant loss of its activity in vivo. These findings suggest a molecular basis for the regulation of cell polarity by Frizzled and Dishevelled.

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