Directional cell migration is a fundamental process in neural development. During neural development, migrating cells respond to extracellular cues and reach their final destinations by navigating along the dorsoventral or anteroposterior (A/P) body axes. Despite important advances that have been made in the identification of guidance cues, their receptors, and the intracellular protein machinery responsible for cell motility, comparatively little is known about the connection between the signaling pathways and the actin cytoskeleton.

In Caenorhabditis elegans, Q neuroblasts on the left (QL) and right (QR) sides of the animal generate cells that migrate in opposite directions along the anteroposterior body axis. The homeobox (Hox) gene lin-39 promotes the anterior migration of QR descendants (QR.x), whereas the canonical Wnt signaling pathway activates another Hox gene, mab-5, to ensure the QL descendants’ (QL.x) posterior migration. However, the regulatory targets of LIN-39 and MAB-5 remain elusive.

Dr. OU Guangshuo’s group at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBP) found that transmembrane protein MIG-13 links the Wnt signaling and Hox genes to the cell polarity in neuronal migration. MIG-13, a transmembrane protein, regulates QR.x anterior migration, while the exact function is not well understood. Dr. OU’s group isolated four new alleles of mig-13 and showed that mig-13 acts autonomously to direct the anterior neuronal migration through high resolution imaging and other genetic or molecular techniques. Dr. OU’s group also found that MIG-13 is a cellular target of the canonical Wnt signaling pathway and the Hox genes and that MIG-13 links extracellular signaling to the A/P polarity in cell migration. Given that MIG-13 is an evolutionarily conserved protein, this work shed new light on the function of mammalian mig-13 homologs.

Dr. OU’s group published an article on PNAS entitled “Transmembrane protein MIG-13 links the Wnt signaling and Hox genes to the cell polarity in neuronal migration” introducing their findings on transmembrane protein MIG-13 in neuronal migration control.

This work was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China and Chinese Academy of Sciences,the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing.