1. Cell Biology
  2. Developmental Biology

Spectrin regulates Hippo signaling by modulating cortical actomyosin activity

  1. Hua Deng
  2. Wei Wang
  3. Jianzhong Yu
  4. Yonggang Zheng
  5. Yun Qing
  6. Duojia Pan  Is a corresponding author
  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06567
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Cite this article
  1. Hua Deng
  2. Wei Wang
  3. Jianzhong Yu
  4. Yonggang Zheng
  5. Yun Qing
  6. Duojia Pan
(2015)
Spectrin regulates Hippo signaling by modulating cortical actomyosin activity
eLife 4:e06567.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06567
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Abstract

The Hippo pathway controls tissue growth through a core kinase cascade that impinges on the transcription of growth-regulatory genes. Understanding how this pathway is regulated in development remains a major challenge. Recent studies suggested that Hippo signaling can be modulated by cytoskeletal tension through a Rok-myosin II pathway. How cytoskeletal tension is regulated or its relationship to the other known upstream regulators of the Hippo pathway remains poorly defined. Here we identify spectrin, a contractile protein at the cytoskeleton-membrane interface, as an upstream regulator of the Hippo signaling pathway. We show that, in contrast to canonical upstream regulators such as Crumbs, Kibra, Expanded and Merlin, spectrin regulates Hippo signaling in a distinct way by modulating cortical actomyosin activity through non-muscle myosin II. These results uncover an essential mediator of Hippo signaling by cytoskeleton tension, providing a new entry point to dissecting how mechanical signals regulate Hippo signaling in living tissues.

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Author details

  1. Hua Deng

    Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.

  2. Wei Wang

    Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.

  3. Jianzhong Yu

    Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.

  4. Yonggang Zheng

    Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.

  5. Yun Qing

    Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    No competing interests declared.

  6. Duojia Pan

    Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    For correspondence
    djpan@jhmi.edu
    Competing interests
    Duojia Pan, Reviewing editor, eLife.

Copyright

© 2015, Deng et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Hua Deng
  2. Wei Wang
  3. Jianzhong Yu
  4. Yonggang Zheng
  5. Yun Qing
  6. Duojia Pan
(2015)
Spectrin regulates Hippo signaling by modulating cortical actomyosin activity
eLife 4:e06567.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06567

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06567

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