Annotated protein:Protein wntless (Evenness interrupted) (Sprinter). Gene symbol: WLS. Taxonomy: Drosophila melanogaster (Fruit fly). Uniprot ID: Q95ST2
antibody wiki:
SynGO gene info:SynGO data @ WLS
Ontology domain:Biological Process
SynGO term:trans-synaptic signalling via exosome (GO:0099157)
Synapse type(s):Neuro-muscular junction
Annotated paper:Korkut C, et al. "Trans-synaptic transmission of vesicular Wnt signals through Evi/Wntless" Cell. 2009 Oct 16;139(2):393-404 PMID:19837038
Figure(s):Figure 1, Figure 5D, I, J, K
Annotation description:Wls is a multi-pass transmembrane glycoprotein essential for Wnt cell signaling. The paper shows that Wls/Evi is required for the transport and/or secretion of Wg (the Wnt-1 homolog Wingless) in presynaptic terminals of the neuromuscular junction, and that Wls/Evi can cross from the pre- to the postsynaptic compartments of the synapse .

Figure1A, C, E makes use of a Wls/Evi knockout to show that the localization of the signaling molecule Wg (the Wnt-1 homolog Wingless). HRP signal is used to mark the presynaptic compartment, so that the localization of Wg in both the pre- and postsynaptic compartments can be made, and quantification is presented in
figure 1E. The Wls knockout leads to a reduction in the Wg signal in both pre- and postsynaptic compartments.
Figure 1B shows a rescue experiment where Wls/Evi is expressed on the knockout background, but only at the presynaptic neurons. This leads to a rescue of the Wg signal in both presynaptic neuron and postsynaptic muscle (quantification in 1E). The postsynaptic expression of Wls/Evi in the muscle (1D) does not lead to rescue.

Figure 5 shows using electron microscopy that Wls/Ewi can move between the pre- and post-synaptic compartments. GFP-tagged Wls/Evi was expressed in motorneurons. Anti-GFP labelling shows that the GFP signal can be found also at the postsynaptic muscle (5D). Expression of GFP-tagged Wls/Evi in the presynaptic neurons on the KO background had a similar effect: GFP-Wls/Evi could be found not only in the neurons but also at the postsynaptic muscle and at the synaptic cleft (5I, J, K).

Taken together, the paper shows that Wls/Evi is important for the localization or secretion of the signaling molecule Wg, and that Wls/Evi is able to move across the synaptic cleft.

3/2/2017 Pim
- The method of Evi/Wntless mediating signals from pre- to post-synapse is different from what I initially thought based on this description. Please see Fig.7 for a model. In short, Evi is a protein in the pre and post secrotory pathway that mediates carrying the intra vesicular Wnt signal across the synapse in exosome-like vesicles.
Evidence tracking, Biological System:Intact tissue
Evidence tracking, Protein Targeting:Genetic transformation (eg; knockout, knockin, mutations)
Over-expression
Antibody (detection)
Evidence tracking, Experiment Assay:Electron Microscopy
Confocal
Annotator(s):Noa Lipstein (ORCID:0000-0002-0755-5899)
Cordelia Imig (ORCID:0000-0001-7351-8706)
Vincent O'connor (ORCID:0000-0003-3185-5709)
Nils Brose (ORCID:0000-0003-0938-8534)
Lab:Department of Molecular Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, 37075 Göttingen, Germany
Additional literature:Fig.6 shows localization of drosophila Wls/Eli to MVB and exosomes. @ PMID:22437826
SynGO annotation ID:1036
Dataset release (version):20231201
View annotation as GO-CAM model:Gene Ontology