Wingless-Type 5A (Wnt-5a) is a member of the WNT family of secreted signaling proteins that regulate many important developmental processes including cell proliferation, migration, differentiation, fate determination and embryonic patterning. WNT signal proteins affect the cell via three known WNT signal transduction pathways. The canonical WNT signaling pathway regulates gene transcription, the non-canonical planar cell polarity pathway regulates cytoskeletal formation, and the non-canonical Wnt/calcium pathway regulates cellular calcium levels.
Wnt5a signals through both the canonical and non-canonical WNT pathways and plays an essential role in regulating developmental pathways during embryogenesis. Mutations in the Wnt5a gene are associated with Robinow syndrome (Roifman et al., 2015) and may also play a role in oncogenesis.
Recently, Wnt5a has been shown to regulate embryonic cell proliferation and differentiation in vascular, bone, and neural tissues. For instance in embryonic vascular tissue, researchers found that endogenous Wnt-5a plays a regulatory role in microvascular self-assembly, and they suggest that manipulating Wnt-5a signaling could enhance control of vascularization in tissue engineering applications (Ramakrishnan et al., 2016). In embryonic bone, studies have shown Wnt-5a induced non-canonical signaling must cooperate with Wnt/β-catenin signaling during bone formation (Okamoto et al., 2014), and that TLR4/Wnt-5a signaling regulates bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell functions (He et al., 2016). In embryonic neural tissue, Wnt-5a activates the non-cannonical Wnt/calcium pathway during a neuronal polarization when axon outgrowth is critically facilitated (Horigane et al., 2016).
Novus Biologicals offers a range of high quality Wnt5a antibodies guaranteed for use in a variety of research applications to help understand Wnt signaling in embryogenesis.
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| For example, Wnt-5a Antibody (AF645) has been used in IHC staining on mouse embryonic rib tissues. | Additionally, the Wnt-5a antibody (NBP1-60032) has been used in IHC staining on human heart tissues. |
Researchers have used Novus' Wnt-5a antibodies in research on numerous diseases including HIV, prostate cancer, diabetes and obesity. First, researchers used Novus' Wnt-5a antibody (NBP2-24752) to show that activated Wnt signaling contributes to the expression of the synaptic plasticity in the spinal cord during HIV-associated chronic pain (Shi et al., 2013). Then, researchers used Novus' Wnt-5a antibody (H00007474-M04) to demonstrate that Wnt5a exhibits anti-tumor effects in prostate cancer cells and may therefore be suitable as a prognostic marker and therapeutic target for prostate cancer and associated skeletal metastases (Thiele et al. 2014). Finally, researchers used Novus' Wnt-5a Antibody (442625) to show non-canonical Wnt5a signaling contributes to obesity-induced insulin resistance (Fuster et al., 2015).
