Insights into the biological functions of Dock family guanine nucleotide exchange factors
- Mélanie Laurin1,2 and
- Jean-François Côté1,2,3,4,5
- 1Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), Montréal, Quebec H2W 1R7, Canada;
- 2Département de Médecine (Programmes de Biologie Moléculaire), Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec H3T 1J4, Canada;
- 3Département de Biochimie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec H3T 1J4, Canada;
- 4Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec H3A 1A3, Canada
Abstract
Rho GTPases play key regulatory roles in many aspects of embryonic development, regulating processes such as differentiation, proliferation, morphogenesis, and migration. Two families of guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) found in metazoans, Dbl and Dock, are responsible for the spatiotemporal activation of Rac and Cdc42 proteins and their downstream signaling pathways. This review focuses on the emerging roles of the mammalian DOCK family in development and disease. We also discuss, when possible, how recent discoveries concerning the biological functions of these GEFs might be exploited for the development of novel therapeutic strategies.
Keywords
Footnotes
-
↵5 Corresponding author
Email jean-francois.cote{at}ircm.qc.ca
-
Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.236349.113.
This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the first six months after the full-issue publication date (see http://genesdev.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After six months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
