The Wnt/β-catenin/TCF/Sp5/Zic4 Gene Network That Regulates Head Organizer Activity in Hydra Is Differentially Regulated in Epidermis and Gastrodermis
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PROVIDER: S-EPMC11201823 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Polyps of the cnidarian Hydra maintain their adult anatomy through two developmental organizers, the head organizer located apically and the foot organizer basally. The head organizer is made of two antagonistic cross-reacting components, an activator, driving apical differentiation and an inhibitor, preventing ectopic head formation. Here we characterize the head inhibitor by comparing planarian genes down-regulated when β-catenin is silenced to Hydra genes displaying a graded apical-to-basal expression and an up-regulation during head regeneration. We identify Sp5 as a transcription factor that fulfills the head inhibitor properties: leading to a robust multiheaded phenotype when knocked-down in Hydra, acting as a transcriptional repressor of Wnt3 and positively regulated by Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Hydra and zebrafish Sp5 repress Wnt3 promoter activity while Hydra Sp5 also activates its own expression, likely via β-catenin/TCF interaction. This work identifies Sp5 as a potent feedback loop inhibitor of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, a function conserved across eumetazoan evolution.
| S-EPMC6338789 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.
2019-01-18 | GSE121321 | GEO
Project description:Head regeneration in Hydra requires the transformation of gastric tissue into a head organizer that produces a head activator and a head inhibitor. Here we report the decipherment of a long-standing question in developmental biology, the identification of the transcription factor Sp5 as a key head inhibitory component. We show that Sp5 has an apical to basal graded expression pattern in intact Hydra, its expression is induced upon Wnt/β-catenin signaling activation and when knocked-down triggers the formation of multiple heads and axes in homeostatic and regenerative conditions. Our data indicate that Sp5 acts in a feed-forward loop to robustly regulate its own expression and that Sp5 prevents head formation by repressing the Wnt3 promoter. This Sp5 mediated Wnt antagonism is conserved and was invented early in metazoan evolution to set up axial patterning. To gain insights on the evolution of the transcriptional properties of the Sp5 gene, we analyzed the capacity of the hydra Sp5 and zebrafish Sp5a paralogs to bind to cis-regulatory elements of the contitutively active human genome and to regulate the expression of the corresponding target genes. To this end, we transfected HEK293 cells with plasmids encoding for either hySp5 or zfSp5a proteins and we performed ChIPseq and RNAseq experiments to analyze their genomic occupancies and the changes in the transcriptional profiles induced upon transfection.
2019-01-18 | GSE121317 | GEO
Project description:Head regeneration in Hydra requires the transformation of gastric tissue into a head organizer that produces a head activator and a head inhibitor. Here we report the decipherment of a long-standing question in developmental biology, the identification of the transcription factor Sp5 as a key head inhibitory component. We show that Sp5 has an apical to basal graded expression pattern in intact Hydra, its expression is induced upon Wnt/β-catenin signaling activation and when knocked-down triggers the formation of multiple heads and axes in homeostatic and regenerative conditions. Our data indicate that Sp5 acts in a feed-forward loop to robustly regulate its own expression and that Sp5 prevents head formation by repressing the Wnt3 promoter. This Sp5 mediated Wnt antagonism is conserved and was invented early in metazoan evolution to set up axial patterning.
2019-01-18 | GSE121316 | GEO
Project description:BackgroundThe Hydra head organizer acts as a signaling center that initiates and maintains the primary body axis in steady state polyps and during budding or regeneration. Wnt/beta-Catenin signaling functions as a primary cue controlling this process, but how Wnt ligand activity is locally restricted at the protein level is poorly understood. Here we report a proteomic analysis of Hydra head tissue leading to the identification of an astacin family proteinase as a Wnt processing factor.ResultsHydra astacin-7 (HAS-7) is expressed from gland cells as an apical-distal gradient in the body column, peaking close beneath the tentacle zone. HAS-7 siRNA knockdown abrogates HyWnt3 proteolysis in the head tissue and induces a robust double axis phenotype, which is rescued by simultaneous HyWnt3 knockdown. Accordingly, double axes are also observed in conditions of increased Wnt activity as in transgenic actin::HyWnt3 and HyDkk1/2/4 siRNA treated animals. HyWnt3-induced double axes in Xenopus embryos could be rescued by coinjection of HAS-7 mRNA. Mathematical modelling combined with experimental promotor analysis indicate an indirect regulation of HAS-7 by beta-Catenin, expanding the classical Turing-type activator-inhibitor model.ConclusionsWe show the astacin family protease HAS-7 maintains a single head organizer through proteolysis of HyWnt3. Our data suggest a negative regulatory function of Wnt processing astacin proteinases in the global patterning of the oral-aboral axis in Hydra.
| S-EPMC8191133 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Head regeneration in Hydra requires the transformation of gastric tissue into a head organizer that produces a head activator and a head inhibitor. Here we report the decipherment of a long-standing question in developmental biology, the identification of the transcription factor Sp5 as a key head inhibitory component. We show that Sp5 has an apical to basal graded expression pattern in intact Hydra, its expression is induced upon Wnt/β-catenin signaling activation and when knocked-down triggers the formation of multiple heads and axes in homeostatic and regenerative conditions. Our data indicate that Sp5 acts in a feed-forward loop to robustly regulate its own expression and that Sp5 prevents head formation by repressing the Wnt3 promoter. This Sp5 mediated Wnt antagonism is conserved and was invented early in metazoan evolution to set up axial patterning.
2019-03-01 | GSE110277 | GEO
Project description:BackgroundAxis patterning during development is accompanied by large-scale gene expression changes. These are brought about by changes in the histone modifications leading to dynamic alterations in chromatin architecture. The cis regulatory DNA elements also play an important role towards modulating gene expression in a context-dependent manner. Hydra belongs to the phylum Cnidaria where the first asymmetry in the body plan was observed and the oral-aboral axis originated. Wnt signaling has been shown to determine the head organizer function in the basal metazoan Hydra.ResultsTo gain insights into the evolution of cis regulatory elements and associated chromatin signatures, we ectopically activated the Wnt signaling pathway in Hydra and monitored the genome-wide alterations in key histone modifications. Motif analysis of putative intergenic enhancer elements from Hydra revealed the conservation of bilaterian cis regulatory elements that play critical roles in development. Differentially regulated enhancer elements were identified upon ectopic activation of Wnt signaling and found to regulate many head organizer specific genes. Enhancer activity of many of the identified cis regulatory elements was confirmed by luciferase reporter assay. Quantitative chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis upon activation of Wnt signaling further confirmed the enrichment of H3K27ac on the enhancer elements of Hv_Wnt5a, Hv_Wnt11 and head organizer genes Hv_Bra1, CnGsc and Hv_Pitx1. Additionally, perturbation of the putative H3K27me3 eraser activity using a specific inhibitor affected the ectopic activation of Wnt signaling indicating the importance of the dynamic changes in the H3K27 modifications towards regulation of the genes involved in the head organizer activity.ConclusionsThe activation-associated histone marks H3K4me3, H3K27ac and H3K9ac mark chromatin in a similar manner as seen in bilaterians. We identified intergenic cis regulatory elements which harbor sites for key transcription factors involved in developmental processes. Differentially regulated enhancers exhibited motifs for many zinc-finger, T-box and ETS related TFs whose homologs have a head specific expression in Hydra and could be a part of the pioneer TF network in the patterning of the head. The ability to differentially modify the H3K27 residue is critical for the patterning of Hydra axis revealing a dynamic acetylation/methylation switch to regulate gene expression and chromatin architecture.
| S-EPMC7552563 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Polarized Wnt signaling along the primary body axis is a conserved property of axial patterning in bilaterians and prebilaterians, and depends on localized sources of Wnt ligands. However, the mechanisms governing the localized Wnt expression that emerged early in evolution are poorly understood. Here we find in the cnidarian Hydra that two functionally distinct cis-regulatory elements control the head organizer-associated Hydra Wnt3 (HyWnt3). An autoregulatory element, which mediates direct inputs of Wnt/β-catenin signaling, highly activates HyWnt3 transcription in the head region. In contrast, a repressor element is necessary and sufficient to restrict the activity of the autoregulatory element, thereby allowing the organizer-specific expression. Our results reveal that a combination of autoregulation and repression is crucial for establishing a Wnt-expressing organizing center in a basal metazoan. We suggest that this transcriptional control is an evolutionarily old strategy in the formation of Wnt signaling centers and metazoan axial patterning.
| S-EPMC3107325 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Wnt/β-catenin signalling has been shown to play a critical role during head organizer formation in Hydra. Here, we characterized the Wnt signalling regulatory network involved in formation of the head organizer. We found that Wnt signalling regulates genes that are important in tissue morphogenesis. We identified that majority of transcription factors (TFs) regulated by Wnt/β-catenin signalling belong to the homeodomain and forkhead families. Silencing of Margin, one of the Wnt regulated homeodomain TFs, results in loss of the ectopic tentacle phenotype typically seen upon activation of Wnt signalling. Furthermore, we show that the Margin promoter is directly bound and regulated by β-catenin. Ectopic expression of Margin in zebrafish embryos results in body axis abnormalities suggesting that Margin plays a role in axis patterning. Our findings suggest that homeobox TFs came under the regulatory umbrella of Wnt/β-catenin signalling presumably resulting in the evolution of primary body axis in animal phyla.
| S-EPMC6879750 | biostudies-literature
Project description:An evolutionarily-conserved Wnt3/β-catenin/Sp5 feedback loop restricts head organizer activity in Hydra
| PRJNA497058 | ENA