Hedgehog Signaling Pathway

The hedgehog signaling pathway is a mechanism that directs the development of embryonic cells in animals, from invertebrates to vertebrates. The hedgehog signaling pathway is a system of genes [5] and gene products, mostly proteins, that convert one kind of signal into another, called transduction. In 1980, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard [6] and Eric F. Wieschaus, at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory [7] in Heidelberg, Germany, identified several fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster [8]) genes [5]. They found that when those genes [5] were changed or mutated, the mutated genes [5] disrupted the normal development of fruit fly larvae. The researchers called one of the genes [5] hedgehog (abbreviated hh). NüssleinVolhard, Wieschaus, and Edward B. Lewis [9], at the California Institute of Technology [10] in Pasadena, California, shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their research on how genes [5] control early embryonic development in fruit flies. The hedgehog signaling pathway is conserved across many animal taxa, or phyla, from Drosophila [11] to humans [12]. The hedgehog signaling pathway controls several key components of embryonic development, stem-cell maintenance, and it influences the development of some cancers.