| Speaker: |
Georg Halder
VIB and University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium |
| Title: |
The Hippo Pathway in Organ Growth Control |
| Summary : | Organ growth is fundamental to animal development, yet remarkably little is known about the mechanisms that regulate organ size. We are using Drosophila to study the Hippo signaling pathway, a recently discovered tumor suppressor pathway that plays a key role in the regulation of organ size. The core of the Hippo pathway comprises a kinase cascade that is regulated by multiple upstream inputs including the transmembrane receptor Fat and Crumbs, cell polarity determinants such as Scribble and aPKC, the cell adhesion receptor E-cadherin, and the actin cytoskeleton. Although many upstream regulators have been identified, how these contribute to organ growth control and how they cross-talk with each other is still poorly understood. I will present recent data on our analysis of how cell adhesion and cell polarity interact to regulate the Hippo pathway. |
