Differential requirement for β-catenin in epithelial and fiber cells during lens development

Abstract

Recent studies implicate Wnt/β-catenin signaling in lens differentiation (Stump, R. J., et al., 2003. A role for Wnt/beta-catenin signaling in lens epithelial differentiation. Dev Biol;259:48-61). β-catenin is a component of adherens junctions and functions as a transcriptional activator in canonical Wnt signaling. We investigated the effects of Cre/LoxP-mediated deletion of β-catenin during lens development using two Cre lines that specifically deleted β-catenin in whole lens or only in differentiated fibers, from E13.5. We found that β-catenin was required in lens epithelium and during early fiber differentiation but appeared to be redundant in differentiated fiber cells. Complete loss of ..