Role of Src Family Kinases in Regulation of Intestinal Epithelial Homeostasis

Abstract

Proper regulation of epithelial cell turnover is important for the structural integrity and homeostasis of various tissues, including the intestine. Here we show that ablation of Csk, a negative regulator of Src family kinases (SFKs), specifically in intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) resulted in the development of hyperplasia throughout the intestinal epithelium of mice. Such conditional ablation of Csk also increased the proliferative activity and turnover of IECs, disturbed the differentiation of Paneth and goblet cells, reduced the number of intestinal stem cells, and attenuated the expression of Wnt target genes in the intestine. Moreover, the tyrosine phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and the activities of both Rac and Yes-associated protein (YAP) were increased in intestinal crypts or organoids of the mutant mice, whereas inhibition of Rac or YAP activity rescued the mutant phenotypes. Our results thus suggest that SFKs promote the proliferation of IECs in intestinal crypts through activation of Rac or YAP and that they thereby contribute to the proper regulation of IEC turnover and intestinal homeostasis.

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Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/MCB.00311-16.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank M. Okada (Osaka University) for the Csk^fl/fl mice and helpful discussion, T. Sato (Keio University) for technical advice, and C. J. Kuo (Stanford University) for providing HEK293T cells expressing R-spondin1–Fc.

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.