2. Academic Validation
  3. Deficiency of the HGF/Met pathway leads to thyroid dysgenesis by impeding late thyroid expansion

Deficiency of the HGF/Met pathway leads to thyroid dysgenesis by impeding late thyroid expansion

  • Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 11;15(1):3165. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47363-9.
Ya Fang # 1 2,  Jia-Ping Wan # 1 3,  Zheng Wang # 1,  Shi-Yang Song # 1 4,  Cao-Xu Zhang 1,  Liu Yang 1,  Qian-Yue Zhang 1,  Chen-Yan Yan 1,  Feng-Yao Wu 1,  Sang-Yu Lu 1,  Feng Sun 1,  Bing Han 1,  Shuang-Xia Zhao 5,  Mei Dong 6,  Huai-Dong Song 7
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Molecular Diagnostics & Endocrinology, The Core Laboratory in Medical Center of Clinical Research, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200011, China.
  • 2 Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Medical Center of Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215000, China.
  • 3 Department of Endocrinology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
  • 4 Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Shanghai Institute of Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
  • 5 Department of Molecular Diagnostics & Endocrinology, The Core Laboratory in Medical Center of Clinical Research, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200011, China. [email protected].
  • 6 Department of Molecular Diagnostics & Endocrinology, The Core Laboratory in Medical Center of Clinical Research, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200011, China. [email protected].
  • 7 Department of Molecular Diagnostics & Endocrinology, The Core Laboratory in Medical Center of Clinical Research, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Medical Genomics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200011, China. [email protected].
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 38605010 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47363-9
Abstract

The mechanisms of bifurcation, a key step in thyroid development, are largely unknown. Here we find three zebrafish lines from a forward genetic screening with similar thyroid dysgenesis phenotypes and identify a stop-gain mutation in hgfa and two missense mutations in met by positional cloning from these zebrafish lines. The elongation of the thyroid primordium along the pharyngeal midline was dramatically disrupted in these zebrafish lines carrying a mutation in hgfa or met. Further studies show that MAPK inhibitor U0126 could mimic thyroid dysgenesis in zebrafish, and the phenotypes are rescued by overexpression of constitutively active MEK or Snail, downstream molecules of the HGF/Met pathway, in thyrocytes. Moreover, HGF promotes thyrocyte migration, which is probably mediated by downregulation of E-cadherin expression. The delayed bifurcation of the thyroid primordium is also observed in thyroid-specific Met knockout mice. Together, our findings reveal that HGF/Met is indispensable for the bifurcation of the thyroid primordium during thyroid development mediated by downregulation of E-cadherin in thyrocytes via MAPK-snail pathway.

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