NCBI Summary:
DVL1, the human homolog of the Drosophila dishevelled gene (dsh) encodes a cytoplasmic phosphoprotein that regulates cell proliferation, acting as a transducer molecule for developmental processes, including segmentation and neuroblast specification. DVL1 is a candidate gene for neuroblastomatous transformation. The Schwartz-Jampel syndrome and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2A have been mapped to the same region as DVL1. The phenotypes of these diseases may be consistent with defects which might be expected from aberrant expression of a DVL gene during development. Three transcript variants encoding three different isoforms have been found for this gene.
General function
Intracellular signaling cascade
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Cellular localization
Cytoplasmic
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Ovarian function
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Expression regulated by
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Ovarian localization
Oocyte
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Dishevelled proteins regulate cell adhesion in mouse blastocyst and serve to monitor changes in Wnt signaling. Na J et al. Wnt signaling is essential for the regulation of cell polarity and cell fate in the early embryogenesis of many animal species. Multiple Wnt genes and its pathway members are expressed in the mouse early embryo, raising the question whether they play any roles in preimplantation development. Dishevelled is an important transducer of divergent Wnt pathways. Here we show that three of the mouse Dishevelled proteins are not only expressed in oocytes and during preimplantation development, but also display distinct spatio-temporal localization. Interestingly, as embryos reach blastocyst stage, Dishevelled 2 becomes increasingly associated with cell membrane in trophectoderm cells, while at E4.5, Dishevelled 3 is highly enriched in the cytoplasm of ICM cells. These changes are coincident with an increase in the active form of beta-catenin, p120catenin transcription and decrease of Kaiso expression, indicating an upregulation of Wnt signaling activity before implantation. When Dishevelled-GFP fusion proteins are overexpressed in single blastomeres of the 4-cell stage embryo, the progeny of this cell show reduction in cell adhesiveness and a rounded shape at the blastocyst stage. This suggests that perturbing Dvl function interferes with cell-cell adhesion through the non-canonical Wnt pathway in blastocysts.