Final Activity and Management Report Summary - WDVPT (Role of the Wnt/b-catenin pathway in the dorso-ventral organisation of the telencephalon.)
In the telencephalon FoxG1 is the molecule that regulates the signalling pathways; dorsally the Wnt and ventrally the Hedgehog pathway. Recently FoxG1 was implicated in the Human Rett syndrome, a neurodegenerative disorder; we believe that our study can contribute to a better understanding of this syndrome. The transmission of the visual information from the eye to the brain is dependent of a correct patterning of the eye. Here we discovered that dorsal-ventral patterning of the eye is dependent of dkk1. In this tissue, dkk1 regulates the establishment of Dorsal and ventral by coordinating the activity of several signalling pathways: Wnt, Fgf and BMP. These projects unravelled two different mechanisms used by different tissues to reach the same goal of establish a distinct dorsal and ventral programme.