Coordinated regulation of the dorsal-ventral and anterior-posterior patterning of Xenopus embryos by the BTB/POZ zinc finger protein Zbtb14.

During early vertebrate embryogenesis, bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) belonging to the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) family of growth factors play a central role in dorsal-ventral (DV) patterning of embryos, while other growth factors such as Wnt and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) family members regulate formation of the anterior-posterior (AP) axis. Although the establishment of body plan is thought to require coordinated formation of the DV and AP axes, the mechanistic details underlying this coordination are not well understood. Here, we show that a Xenopus homologue of zbtb14 plays an essential role in the regulation of both DV and AP patterning during early Xenopus development. We show that overexpression of Zbtb14 promotes neural induction and inhibits epidermal differentiation, thereby regulating DV patterning. In addition, Zbtb14 promotes the formation of posterior neural tissue and suppresses anterior neural development. Consistent with this, knock-down experiments show that Zbtb14 is required for neural development, especially for the formation of posterior neural tissues. Mechanistically, Zbtb14 reduces the levels of phosphorylated Smad1/5/8 to suppress BMP signaling and induces an accumulation of beta-Catenin to promote Wnt signaling. Collectively, these results suggest that Zbtb14 plays a crucial role in the formation of DV and AP axes by regulating both the BMP and Wnt signaling pathways during early Xenopus embryogenesis.