GrowTallest

Non-canonical Wnt and planar cell polarity

The Wnt branch that works without β-catenin, how it stacks dividing chondrocytes into columns along a bone's long axis, and the human syndromes that follow when it fails.

Inside the platePublished

9 min read40 sources

WNT5A is more concentrated at one end of the limb than the other. A cartilage cell reads where it sits in that slope through ROR2 and puts VANGL on one face, so its daughters are placed in line along the long axis; without that direction the same cells build a shorter, wider bone. WNT5AROR2VANGLin linerandomGradientPolarityLength or widthalong the limbone face markedsame cells either way

The branch in Wnt and β-catenin ends at TCF/LEF in the nucleus. This one ends at the cytoskeleton, and what it carries is direction. Its core is four proteins — WNT5A, a ROR receptor tyrosine kinase, a Frizzled and Dishevelled — and mutations in each of them cause Robinow syndrome.

In this article

  • Turning division into length
  • The gradient
  • Mouse phenotypes
  • The human genetics
  • No compound acts here for growth

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