Latrophilin Signaling Links Anterior-Posterior Tissue Polarity and Oriented Cell Divisions in the C. elegans Embryo

• DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2009.08.008
• Publication Date: 2009-10-21T12:54:32Z
• Authors: Tobias Langenhan; Simone Prömel; Lamia Mestek; Behrooz Esmaeili; Helen Waller-Evans; Christian Hennig; Yuji Kohara; Leon Avery; Ioannis Vakonakis; Ralf Schnabel; Andreas P. Russ
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; Embryo, Nonmammalian; Receptors, Peptide; Organogenesis; Cell Polarity; Embryonic Development; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; DEVBIO; Spindle Apparatus; Animals, Genetically Modified; Immunoenzyme Techniques; 03 medical and health sciences; Oogenesis; Animals; RNA, Small Interfering; Caenorhabditis elegans; Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; Cell Division; In Situ Hybridization; Developmental Biology; Signal Transduction

Understanding the mechanisms that coordinate the orientation of cell division planes during embryogenesis and morphogenesis is a fundamental problem in developmental biology. Here we show that the orphan receptor lat-1, a homolog of vertebrate latrophilins, plays an essential role in the establishment of tissue polarity in the C. elegans embryo. We provide evidence that lat-1 is required for the alignment of cell division planes to the anterior-posterior axis and acts in parallel to known polarity and morphogenesis signals. lat-1 is a member of the Adhesion-GPCR protein family and is structurally related to flamingo/CELSR, an essential component of the planar cell polarity pathway. We dissect the molecular requirements of lat-1 signaling and implicate lat-1 in an anterior-posterior tissue polarity pathway in the premorphogenesis stage of C. elegans development.