Abstract
Hedgehog (Hh) signaling is an important regulator of embryonic patterning, tissue regeneration, stem cell renewal and cancer growth. A purine derivative named purmorphamine was previously found to activate the Hh pathway and affect osteoblast differentiation through an unknown mechanism. We demonstrate here that purmorphamine directly targets Smoothened, a critical component of the Hh signaling pathway.
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Acknowledgements
We thank J. Taipale, Y. Ma, and P. Beachy for providing Smo−/− MEFs. Generation and characterization of this cell line will be described elsewhere (M. Varjosalo, S.-P. Li, and J. Taipale, unpublished data). This work was funded by a Kimmel Scholar Award from the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research.
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Sinha, S., Chen, J. Purmorphamine activates the Hedgehog pathway by targeting Smoothened. Nat Chem Biol 2, 29–30 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio753
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio753
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