Wnt Signals in Development and Disease

Wnt signaling helps cells communicate during development and in adult tissues. The Wnt proteins were first discovered nearly four decades ago in genetic studies of body pattern defects in Drosophila. One gene was named wingless, or wg, because of the fly phenotype it caused.

Around the same time,...

Wnt family proteins are secreted, lipid-modified glycoproteins that get their name from a portmanteau of the Wingless gene in Drosophila and the Integrated gene in vertebrates - both of which encode Wnt proteins.

This protein family regulates a conserved signaling pathway that controls numerous critical developmental events in all animals...