Dr. Jeremy Nathans

The discovery of Gpr124 as a new component in canonical Wnt signaling in CNS vascular endothelial cells suggests that additional receptor components and extracellular regulators of this pathway remain to be discovered. Over the past year we have identified a second novel receptor component: a GPI anchored plasma membrane protein called RECK (11). RECK was initially identified in tumor cell lines, but together with our collaborators (Benoit Vanhollebeke and Didier Stanier), we have shown that it is critical for CNS angiogenesis and that it greatly enhances Wnt signaling (>10-fold) in synergy with Gpr124.