The Ron receptor is upregulated in human breast cancers and correlates with enhanced metastasis and reduced patient survival. Ron overexpression drives mammary tumorigenesis through direct β-catenin activation and augmented tumor cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Ron and β-catenin are also coordinately elevated in breast cancers. The vitamin D receptor (VDR) antagonizes β-catenin sign...

Nemo-like kinase (NLK) is an evolutionarily conserved serine/threonine kinase and has been considered to be a suppressor of Wnt signaling in mammalian cells. Our study, however, has raised the possibility that NLK also functions as a Wnt signaling activator. In human osteosarcoma and neuroblastoma cell lines, NLK specifically enhanced β-catenin-TCF complex transcription activity. The effect req...

BACKGROUND β-arrestins have been shown to play a critical role in the progression of diabetic nephropathy. Nevertheless, the potential mechanism of β-arrestins on the regulation of podocyte apoptosis has rarely been discussed. This study aimed to elucidate the regulation of β-arrestin 1/2 on podocyte apoptosis through the Wnt/b-catenin pathway. MATERIAL AND METHODS This study structured β-arres...

The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway plays diverse roles in embryonic development and maintenance of organs and tissues in adults as well as in the pathogenesis of a range of diseases, including many types of carcinomas. β-catenin, the principal downstream effector of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, migrates to the nucleus and mediates the activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. The aim of the prese...

We have recently unravelled a novel function for CD82 in E-cadherin-mediated cellular adhesion. CD82 inhibits β-catenin tyrosine phosphorylation and stabilizes E-cadherin-β-catenin complexes at the cell membrane. This function inhibits cancer cell dissociation from the primary cancer nest and limits metastasis. In this study, we focused on the eff...

Loss of the tumour suppressor PTEN is frequent in human melanoma, results in MAPK activation, suppresses senescence and mediates metastatic behaviour. How PTEN loss mediates these effects is unknown. Here we show that loss of PTEN in epithelial and melanocytic cell lines induces the nuclear localization and transcriptional activation of β-catenin independent of the PI3K-AKT-GSK3β axis. The abse...

Dysregulation of canonical Wnt signaling is thought to play a role in colon carcinogenesis. β-Catenin, a key mediator of the pathway, is stabilized upon Wnt activation and accumulates in the nucleus, where it can interact with the transcription factor T cell factor (TCF) to transactivate gene expression. Normal colonic epithelia express a truncated TCF-1 form, called dnTCF-1, that lacks the cri...

The roles of secreted frizzled-related protein-1 (SFRP1) and β-catenin in human cancer have been widely studied, and it has recently been demonstrated that these proteins are associated with numerous human carcinomas. However, their clinical significance in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) has not been examined. The current study aimed to analyze the correlation between the expression of SFRP1 and...

BACKGROUND The APC tumour suppressor functions in several cellular processes including the regulation of β-catenin in Wnt signalling and in cell adhesion and migration. FINDINGS In this study, we establish that in epithelial cells N-terminally phosphorylated β-catenin specifically localises to several subcellular sites including cell-cell contacts and the ends of cell protrusions. N-terminall...