Vascular development requires an orderly exchange of signals between growing vessels and their supporting tissues, but little is known of the intracellular signaling pathways underlying this communication. We find that mice with disruptions of both NFATc4 and the related NFATc3 genes die around E11 with generalized defects in vessel assembly as well as excessive and disorganized growth of vesse...

Axon outgrowth is the first step in the formation of neuronal connections, but the pathways that regulate axon extension are still poorly understood. We find that mice deficient in calcineurin-NFAT signaling have dramatic defects in axonal outgrowth, yet have little or no defect in neuronal differentiation or survival. In vitro, sensory and commissural neurons lacking calcineurin function or NF...

Calcineurin dephosphorylates multiple serine residues near the N terminus of NFAT proteins enabling them to translocate from cytoplasm to nucleus, where they activate a subset of hypertrophic response genes. Transgenic mice over-expressing a constitutively active form of calcineurin or NFAT3, developed obviously hypertrophy and heart failure or sudden death proving its pathogenic role. Here we ...