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Abstract
Morphogenesis is a shape-building process during development of multicellular organisms. During this process, the establishment and modulation of cell-cell contacts play an important role. Cadherins, the major cell adhesion molecules, form adherens junctions connecting epithelial cells. Numerous studies of Bilateria have shown that cadherins are associated with the regulation of cell differentiation, cell shape changes, cell migration and tissue morphogenesis. To date, the role of cadherins in non-bilaterians is unknown. Here, we study the expression and function of two paralogous classical cadherins, Cadherin 1 and Cadherin 3, in a diploblastic animal, the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis We show that a cadherin switch accompanies the formation of germ layers. Using specific antibodies, we show that both cadherins are localized to adherens junctions at apical and basal positions in ectoderm and endoderm. During gastrulation, partial epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition of endodermal cells is marked by stepwise downregulation of Cadherin 3 and upregulation of Cadherin 1. Knockdown experiments show that both cadherins are required for maintenance of tissue integrity and tissue morphogenesis. Thus, both sea anemones and bilaterians use independently duplicated cadherins combinatorially for tissue morphogenesis and germ layer differentiation.
Highlights
Morphogenesis is a process of tissue and organ formation during organism development (Gilbert, 2013) that is driven by coordinated cell shape changes, cell migration, cell proliferation, cell death and cell adhesion
Structure of classical cadherins of Nematostella vectensis Three genes encoding classical cadherins have been predicted in the genome of Nematostella vectensis, cadherin1, cadherin2 and cadherin3 (Hulpiau and van Roy, 2011)
Evolution and structure of cadherins proteins with cadherin domains are present in choanoflagellates, cadherins with intracellular catenin binding domains are an important class of cell adhesion molecules that arose only in metazoans (Nichols et al, 2012)
Summary
Morphogenesis is a process of tissue and organ formation during organism development (Gilbert, 2013) that is driven by coordinated cell shape changes, cell migration, cell proliferation, cell death and cell adhesion. Cadherins are transmembrane cell adhesion molecules that play an important role in these processes. They provide the mechanical connection between cells, and control cell-cell recognition, cell sorting, tissue boundary formation, signal transduction, formation of cell. Classical cadherins are conserved molecules present in all animals whose genomes have been analyzed (Alberts, 2007) They are major components of the adherens junctions between cells, which are conserved structures of epithelial cells in most animals (Meng and Takeichi, 2009). The extracellular domain consists of a variable number of cadherin repeats of about 110 amino acids each and, depending on the species, laminin G and epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like domains
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