A mutational analysis of dishevelled in Drosophila defines novel domains in the dishevelled protein as well as novel suppressing alleles of axin

Abstract

Drosophila dishevelled (dsh) functions in two pathways: it is necessary to transduce Wingless (Wg) signaling and it is required in planar cell polarity. To learn more about how Dsh can discriminate between these functions, we performed genetic screens to isolate additional dsh alleles and we examined the potential role of protein phosphorylation by site-directed mutagenesis. We identified two alleles with point mutations in the Dsh DEP domain that specifically disrupt planar polarity signaling. When positioned in the structure of the DEP domain, these mutations are located close to each other and to a previously identified planar polarity mutation. In addition to the requirement for the DEP domain, we found that a cluster of potential phosphorylation sites in a binding domain for the protein kinase PAR-1 is also essential for planar polarity signaling. To identify regions of dsh that are necessary for Wg signaling, we screened for mutations that modified a GMR-GAL4;UAS-dsh overexpression phenotype in the eye. We recovered many alleles of the transgene containing missense mutations, including mutations in the DIX domain and in the DEP domain, the latter group mapping separately from the planar polarity mutations. In addition, several transgenes had mutations within a domain containing a consensus sequence for an SH3-binding protein. We also recovered second-site-suppressing mutations in axin, mapping at a region that may specifically interact with overexpressed Dsh.