Wnt signaling pathway
The Wnt signaling pathways are a group of signal transduction pathways made of proteins that pass signals into a cell through cell surface receptors. Three Wnt signaling pathways have been characterized: the canonical Wnt pathway, the noncanonical planar cell polarity pathway and the noncanonical Wnt/calcium pathway. All three pathways are activated by binding a Wnt-protein ligand to a Frizzled family receptor, which passes the biological signal to the protein dishevelled inside the cell. The canonical Wnt pathway leads to regulation of gene transcription. The noncanonical planar cell polarity pathway regulates the cytoskeleton that is responsible for the shape of the cell. The noncanonical Wnt/calcium pathway regulates calcium inside the cell. Wnt signaling pathways use either nearby cell-cell communication (paracrine) or same-cell communication (autocrine). They are highly evolutionarily conserved in animals, which means they are similar across animal species from fruit flies to humans.
WNT2B
Protein Wnt-2b (formerly Wnt13) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the WNT2B gene.
This gene encodes a member of the wingless-type MMTV integration site (WNT) family of highly conserved, secreted signaling factors. WNT family members function in a variety of developmental processes including regulation of cell growth and differentiation and are characterized by a WNT-core domain. This gene may play a role in human development as well as human carcinogenesis.
This gene produces two alternative transcript variants.
