CSB Departmental Seminar – Professor Franck Pichaud

“Cdc42 and its effectors in epithelial morphogenesis”

Friday April 12, 2019
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. at RW 432

Host:

Professor Ulrich Tepass

Cdc42 – a member of the small Rho GTPase family – regulates cell polarity from yeast to humans. It is an essential regulator of polarized morphogenesis in epithelial cells, by coordinating apical membrane morphogenesis, lumen formation and junction maturation. Work in yeast and C. elegans has provided important clues as to how this molecular switch can generate and regulate polarity through its localized activation or inhibition, and by promoting cytoskeleton regulation. Studies in fly and vertebrate models have revealed how important and complex these regulations can be during epithelial morphogenesis. This complexity is mirrored by the fact that Cdc42 can exert its function through many effector proteins. In epithelial cells, these effectors include aPKC (atypical Protein Kinase C), the PAK (P21-Activated Kinase) family, MRCK (Myotonic dystrophy-Related Cdc42 binding Kinase) and N-WASp (Wiskott–Aldrich Syndrome protein). During my presentation, I will discuss how Cdc42 promotes epithelial cell morphogenesis through these effectors.