Precise regulation of the guidance receptor DMA-1 by KPC-1/Furin instructs dendritic branching decisions
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, United States
- California Institute of Technology, United States
- University of Chicago, United States
- Shanghai Tech University, China
- University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Abstract
Extracellular adhesion molecules and their neuronal receptors guide the growth and branching of axons and dendrites. Growth cones are attracted to intermediate targets, but they must switch their response upon arrival so that they can move away and complete the next stage of growth. Here, we show that KPC-1, a C. elegans Furin homolog, regulates the level of the branching receptor DMA-1 on dendrites by targeting it to late endosomes. In kpc-1 mutants, the level of DMA-1 is abnormally high on dendrites, resulting in trapping of dendrites at locations where a high level of the cognate ligand, the adhesion molecule SAX-7/L1, is present. The misregulation of DMA-1 also causes dendritic self-avoidance defects. Thus, precise regulation of guidance receptors creates flexibility of responses to guidance signals and is critical for neuronal morphogenesis.
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© 2016, Dong et al.
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Precise regulation of the guidance receptor DMA-1 by KPC-1/Furin instructs dendritic branching decisions
eLife 5:e11008.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11008
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