Disease relevance of cer

• Differential screening-selected gene aberrative in neuroblastoma (DAN) belongs to a novel gene family that includes the Xenopus head-inducing factor, Cerberus and the dorsalizing factor, Gremlin [1].

High impact information on cer

• The gene cerberus encodes a secreted protein that is expressed in anterior endoderm and has the unique property of inducing ectopic heads in the absence of trunk structures [2].
• Cerberus is a head-inducing secreted factor expressed in the anterior endoderm of Spemann's organizer [3].
• Therefore, we propose that Gremlin, Cerberus, and DAN control diverse processes in growth and development by selectively antagonizing the activities of different subsets of the TGF beta ligands [4].
• Addition of exogenous beta-catenin protein induced expression of Siamois, XTwin, Xnr3, and Cerberus mRNAs in a protein synthesis independent manner, whereas a panel of other Spemann organizer-specific genes did not respond to beta-catenin [5].
• This Hex-mediated enhancement of Wnt signalling results in the upregulation of the Nieuwkoop centre genes Siamois and Xnr3, and the subsequent increased expression of the anterior endodermal marker Cerberus and other mesendodermal genes downstream of Wnt signalling [6].

Biological context of cer

• Remarkably, those head phenotypes were aggravated by simultaneous depletion of Cerberus [7].
• The Dan gene was first identified as the putative rat tumor suppressor gene and encodes a protein structurally related to Cerberus and Gremlin in vertebrates [8].

Anatomical context of cer

• In Xenopus, XHex and cerberus are early marker genes of the anterior endomesoderm (AE), a subset of endoderm cells fated to form the liver and foregut and implicated in head induction [9].
• An abundant cDNA enriched in Spemann's organizer, cerberus, was isolated by differential screening [3].
• Chordin, a marker of the head and axial mesoderm, is activated by the VCC/Siamois pathway in animal cells but not in vegetal cells whereas cerberus, a marker of the anterior mesendoderm which lacks dorsalising activity, can only be activated by the VCC/Siamois pathway in vegetal cells [10].
• Conjugates of dorsal ectoderm (DE) and ADE explants in which Cerberus function was 'knocked down' revealed the requirement of Cerberus in the ADE for the proper induction of anterior neural markers and repression of more posterior ones [7].

Other interactions of cer

• In overexpression experiments maternal Wnt/beta-catenin and TGF-beta signals (Vg1, Xnr1-2) can induce ectopic XHex and cerberus [9].
• Surprisingly, dorsal signaling molecules such as Chordin, Noggin, Xnr6 and Cerberus were not re-expressed in these embryos [11].
• XBF-2 lies downstream of the BMP antagonists noggin, cerberus, and gremlin since ectodermal explants expressing these molecules exhibit strong expression of XBF-2 [12].

Analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic context of cer

• Microinjection of cerberus mRNA into Xenopus embryos induces ectopic heads, and duplicated hearts and livers [3].
• Xmsx-1 antagonizes the dorsal expression of noggin and cerberus, as revealed by in situ hybridization and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assays [13].

References