TY  - JOUR
TI  - Microtubule disassembly prevents palatal fusion and alters regulation of the E-cadherin/catenin complex
AU  - Kitase, Yukiko
AU  - Shuler, CharlesF.
T2  - The International Journal of Developmental Biology
AB  - During palatal fusion, the midline epithelial seam (MES) degrades to achieve mesenchymal confluence. Epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) is one mechanism which is active in MES degradation. TGF-β induces EMT in medial edge epithelium (MEE) by down-regulation of an epithelial marker, E-cadherin. Microtubule disassembly impaired palatal fusion leading to a multi-layered MES in the mid-region. In this study, we investigated the effect of microtubule disruption on the regulation of the E-cadherin/catenin adhesion complex. Nocodazole (NDZ) enhanced the accumulation of the adhesion complex at cell-cell contacts in MEE, while loss of the adhesion complex was observed in the control. NDZ caused aberrant regulation of the E-cadherin transcriptional repressors (Snail and Zeb) and the activator (c-MYC) through inhibition of the TGF-β/SMAD2 signaling pathway, which led to a failure in EMT. These results suggest that the microtubule cytoskeleton plays an important role in mediating TGF-β/SMAD2 signals to control E-cadherin gene expression in MEE during palatal fusion.
PY  - 2013
DO  - 10.1387/ijdb.120117yk
VL  - 57
IS  - 1
SP  - 55
EP  - 60
J2  - Int. J. Dev. Biol.
LA  - en
SN  - 0214-6282
SN  - 1696-3547
UR  - https://ijdb.ehu.eus/article/120117yk
Y2  - 2024/12/22/12:59:30
ER  -