1. WAVE/SCAR, a multifunctional complex coordinating different aspects of neuronal connectivity
- Author
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Angela Giangrande, Barbara Bardoni, Celine Diebold, Annette Schenck, Eyal D. Schejter, Abrar Qurashi, Jean-Louis Mandel, Pilar Carrera, Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC), and Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)
- Subjects
Nervous system ,[SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio] ,Neuromuscular junction ,Axonogenesis ,Synapse ,Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein ,0302 clinical medicine ,Cell Movement ,Drosophila Proteins ,WAVE/SCAR ,In Situ Hybridization ,ComputingMilieux_MISCELLANEOUS ,Actin nucleation ,Neurons ,CYFIP/Sra-1/PIR121 ,0303 health sciences ,Actin cytoskeleton remodeling ,Axon guidance ,Microfilament Proteins ,Kette/Hem-2/NAP-1/NAP125 ,RNA-Binding Proteins ,Anatomy ,Cell biology ,Drosophila melanogaster ,Phenotype ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,SCAR complex ,Midline crossing ,[SDV.NEU]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC] ,Signal transduction ,Drosophila Protein ,Signal Transduction ,Genotype ,Macromolecular Substances ,Biology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Rac1 GTPase pathway ,Synapse morphology ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Molecular Biology ,Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing ,030304 developmental biology ,Cell Biology ,Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome Protein Family ,Mutation ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Developmental Biology - Abstract
Although it is well established that the WAVE/SCAR complex transduces Rac1 signaling to trigger Arp2/3-dependent actin nucleation, regulatory mechanisms of this complex and its versatile function in the nervous system are poorly understood. Here we show that the Drosophila proteins SCAR, CYFIP and Kette, orthologs of WAVE/SCAR complex components, all show strong accumulation in axons of the central nervous system and indeed form a complex in vivo. Neuronal defects of SCAR, CYFIP and Kette mutants are, despite the initially proposed function of CYFIP and Kette as SCAR silencers, indistinguishable and are as diverse as ectopic midline crossing and nerve branching as well as synapse undergrowth at the larval neuromuscular junction. The common phenotypes of the single mutants are readily explained by the finding that loss of any one of the three proteins leads to degradation of its partners. As a consequence, each mutant is unambiguously to be judged as defective in multiple components of the complex even though each component affects different signaling pathways. Indeed, SCAR-Arp2/3 signaling is known to control axonogenesis whereas CYFIP signaling to the Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein fly ortholog contributes to synapse morphology. Thus, our results identify the Drosophila WAVE/SCAR complex as a multifunctional unit orchestrating different pathways and aspects of neuronal connectivity.
- Published
- 2004
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