Kinetic Responses of β-Catenin Specify the Sites of Wnt Control

Abstract

Dissecting Wnt Signaling The Wnt signaling pathway plays a key role in regulating a broad range of functions from development to cancer. But a precise understanding of how Wnt proteins act through their receptors (Frizzled proteins) has been elusive. By paring the system down to its core reactions and performing kinetic analysis in cultured cells, Hernández et al. (p. 1337 , published online 8 November) were able to deduce the mechanism of Wnt action without invoking any previous assumptions. Such quantitative analysis of mass balance may offer a way to identify essential control points in other complicated signaling systems, and thus help define targets for therapeutic intervention.