Modeling Wnt/?-catenin target gene expression in APC and Wnt gradients under wild type and mutant conditions
25.02.2013
Benary U, Kofahl B, Hecht A, Wolf J
Front Physiol 2013, doi: 10.3389/fphys.2013.00021
We used mathematical modeling to investigate how concentration gradients of Wnt growth factors and intracellular pathway components can elicit regionally distinct transcriptional responses. We show that cooperative gene activation in conjunction with a TCF feedback loop can establish sharp borders of target gene expression in Wnt or APC gradients whereas an incoherent feed forward loop renders gene expression independent of graded Wnt pathway activity. Thus, the combination of gene-specific regulatory mechanisms with a time-independent gradient of Wnt or APC is sufficient to generate distinct patterns of target gene expression.
