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Query: UNIPROT:P41181 (collecting duct)
 5,183 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Urine is produced in the kidney by excretory nephrons and is drained by a tree-like system of collecting ducts to the ureter. The collecting ducts develop by arborisation of an initially unbranched epithelial rudiment, the ureteric bud, which ramifies through the surrounding mesenchyme and induces the formation of nephrons by mesenchyme-to-epithelial transition. The question of how collecting duct morphogenesis is controlled is an important one, from the points of view of both basic developmental biology and congenital renal pathology (multi- and polycystic renal disease, and some forms of renal agenesis, arise from defective collecting duct development). We report that neurturin, a neurotrophin related to glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor and expressed in the developing kidney, acts as a collecting duct morphogen in culture. Applied in culture medium, it promotes epithelial branching and can induced branch initiation that has otherwise been blocked by depleting cultured kidneys of their sulfated proteoglycans or by antibody treatments. Applied locally on agarose beads, neurturin induces supernumerary ureteric buds to emerge from the wolffian duct and causes nearby collecting duct branches to distend to an abnormally large diameter. Like its receptors, neurturin is expressed by the developing collecting ducts themselves, suggesting that it forms an autocrine morphoregulatory control loop. This is in marked contrast to previously identified morphogens such as glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor and hepatocyte growth factor, which act in a paracrine manner.
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PMID:Neurturin: an autocrine regulator of renal collecting duct development. 1032 36

The collecting duct system of the metanephric kidney develops from the ureteric bud, an outgrowth from the caudal end of the Wolffian duct. The ureteric bud is induced to form by signals emanating from a specific area of intermediate mesoderm, which it immediately invades. In response to further mesenchyme-derived signals, the ureteric bud ramifies to form a tree-like collecting duct system, which in turn signals clumps of the mesenchyme cells that surround it to differentiate into epithelial nephrons. The morphogenesis of the collecting duct system is driven by two processes--growth and branching--which are to some extent separable. Each depends on diffusible signals, a number of which have been identified in recent years; growth promoters include hepatocyte growth factor and activin, while ramogens include glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor, neurturin and persephin. Arborisation also depends on matrix components, including proteoglycans, integrins and their ligands, and metalloproteinases, such as matrix metalloproteinase-9, that are involved in matrix remodelling. So far, little progress has been made in elucidating the intracellular pathways responsible for translating growth factor "instructions" into morphological change, but a role for some intracellular components, such as protein kinase C, formins and the cytoskeleton, is implied by recent experimental data. More information on these internal pathways of control is expected over the next few years.
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PMID:Collecting duct morphogenesis. 1045 85