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Signal transduction

An eye on organ development

Nature volume 426, pages 238–239 (2003)Cite this article

Studies in flies and mice have revealed a surprising way in which cells regulate gene activity, with consequences for our understanding of organ formation during development.

The processes by which cells receive outside signals and transmit them into the nucleus have been so well scrutinized that one might think few surprises remain. But three papers in this issue1,2,3 show otherwise. During development, many of the signalling pathways that regulate organ formation are initiated by growth factors that bind to receptors on the cell surface. This triggers a cascade of events inside the cell that frequently involves the addition or removal of phosphate groups (phosphorylation or dephosphorylation, respectively) from cellular proteins. These proteins include those that regulate gene expression, such as transcription factors and their associated 'co-activators' and 'co-repressors'. Rayapureddi et al.1, Tootle et al.2 and Li et al.3 now report the intriguing finding that one type of transcription factor can itself dephosphorylate other proteins — and that this function is crucial in various examples of organ formation. These results reveal a new way in which cells can fine-tune gene expression.

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Figure 1: The eyes (absent) have it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cardiovascular Division, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 954 BRB II, 421 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA

    Jonathan A. Epstein

  2. Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, Cancer Biology Program, Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, HIM 1047, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, 02215, Massachusetts, USA

    Benjamin G. Neel

Authors
  1. Jonathan A. Epstein
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  2. Benjamin G. Neel
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Epstein, J., Neel, B. An eye on organ development. Nature 426, 238–239 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/426238a

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