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First published online February 9, 2007

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New developmental roles for RhoGEFs?

By activating Rho family GTPases in response to regulatory signals, Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factors (RhoGEFs) often link extracellular signals to intracellular responses. They are, therefore, likely to be important during development. Panizzi and colleagues provide an example of this on p. 921 by revealing essential functions for one vertebrate RhoGEF in ciliated epithelia during development. Human ARHGEF11 activates Rho and promotes the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton in cultured cells; its Drosophila homologue controls cell shape changes during gastrulation. To study its role in vertebrate development, the researchers used chromosomal deletion and antisense morpholino oligonucleotides to produce zebrafish embryos that lacked functional Arhgef11 (the zebrafish homolog of ARHGEF11). These embryos showed phenotypes often associated with defective ciliated epithelia, including ventrally curved axes, altered left-right patterning, abnormal kidney development and disrupted intracellular distribution of polarised proteins. How Arhgef11 affects the function of ciliated epithelia remains to be elucidated, but these results clearly identify unanticipated roles for this RhoGEF in ciliated epithelia during vertebrate development.

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Related articles in Development:

New functions for a vertebrate Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factor in ciliated epithelia

Jennifer R. Panizzi, Jason R. Jessen, Iain A. Drummond, and Lilianna Solnica-Krezel
Development 2007 134: 921-931. [Abstract] [Full Text]  

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in Development Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?