| 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 signaling (GO:0099537) |
| 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: | 3673 |
| Dataset release (version): | 20231201 |
| View annotation as GO-CAM model: |  |