Evaluation of Wnt targets during intestinal development and carcinogenesis

Aims: Activation of the canonical Wnt pathway is a indispensable for intestinal development, and also observed during intestinal carcinogenesis. In mice, conditional ablation of APC in the intestine leads to rapid perturbation of differentiation and proliferation. Methods: Expression array analysis was performed at day 5 after induction to monitor early changes following loss of APC in vivo. Of the genes found to be upregulated here, 150 were further studied by in situ hybridization in intestines and whole embryos. Results: Beneath typical Wnt target genes as Cyclin D1, new targets were identified which exhibite…