Signaling activities of the Drosophila wingless gene are separately mutable and appear to be transduced at the cell surface. Author A Bejsovec, E Wieschaus Publication Year 1995 Type Journal Article Abstract The Drosophila segment polarity gene wingless encodes an intercellular signaling molecule that transmits positional information during development of the embryonic epidermis. We have explored the mechanism of wg signal transduction by perturbing cellular processes genetically and by performing structure/function analysis of the Wg protein. We present evidence that Wingless protein may transduce signal at the cell surface and that Wg may bind to its cell surface receptor without necessarily activating it. We demonstrate that two specific signaling activities of the Wg molecule can be disrupted independently by mutation. Sequence analysis indicates that these different signaling activities are not promoted by discrete functional domains, but rather than the overall conformation of the molecule may control distinct signaling functions. We conclude that wg signaling may involve complex interactions between the Wg ligand and its cell surface receptor molecule(s) and that some of this complexity resides within the Wg ligand itself. Keywords Animals, Drosophila, Drosophila Proteins, Mutation, Signal Transduction, Structure-Activity Relationship, Base Sequence, In Situ Hybridization, Molecular Sequence Data, Genes, Insect, Proto-Oncogene Proteins, Wnt1 Protein, Armadillo Domain Proteins, Gene Expression, Proteins, Trans-Activators, Transcription Factors, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Amino Acid Sequence, Fluorescent Antibody Technique, Ligands, GTP Phosphohydrolases, Tissue Distribution, Biological Transport, Dynamins, Epidermis, RNA Splicing Journal Genetics Volume 139 Issue 1 Pages 309-20 Date Published 01/1995 Alternate Journal Genetics Google ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML