Developmental vascular regression is regulated by a Wnt/b-catenin, MYC, P21 (CDKN1A) pathway that controls cell proliferation and cell death

Normal development requires tight regulation of cell proliferation and cell death. Here, we investigated these control mechanisms in the hyaloid vessels, a temporary vascular network in the mammalian eye that requires a Wnt/ß-catenin response for scheduled regression. Transcriptome analysis of the postnatal day 5 mouse hyaloid showed expression of several Wnt pathway proteins. We investigated whether the hyaloid Wnt response was linked to the oncogene Myc, and the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor P21 (CDKN1A), both established regulators of cell cycle progression and cell death. Our analysis showed that the Wnt pathway coreceptors LRP5 and LRP6 have overlapping activities mediating the Wnt/ß-catenin signaling in hyaloid vascular endothelial cells (VECs). We also showed that both Myc and Cdkn1a are downstream of the Wnt response and are required for hyaloid regression but for different reasons. Conditional deletion of Myc in VECs suppressed both proliferation and cell death. By contrast, conditional deletion of Cdkn1a resulted in VEC over-proliferation that countered the effects of cell death on regression. When combined with analysis of MYC, and P21 protein levels, this analysis suggests that a Wnt/ß-catenin, MYC-P21 pathway regulates scheduled hyaloid vessel regression. Overall design: Hyaloid vascular preparations from postnatal day 5 mice were harvested in cold PBS and RNA extracted in Tri Reagent. RNA amplifcation was performed on total RNA before cDNA library was made. Samples were then sequenced using Illimina HiSeq2500 to obtain 25-30 million paired-end reads.

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Nayak G, Odaka Y, Prasad V, Solano AF, Yeo EJ, Vemaraju S, Molkentin JD, Trumpp A, Williams B, Rao S, Lang RA