... is poorly understood. Here, we have assessed the role of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) in mouse pancreatic development based on our observation that the presence of the enzymatically active form of FAK (pFAK) in the epithelial cells is inversely correlated with vessel recruitment. To study the role of FAK...

...Nicoletta I. Petridou; Panayiota Stylianou; Paris A. Skourides FAK is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase involved in a wide variety of biological processes and crucial for embryonic development. In this manuscript, we report the generation of a new FAK dominant negative (FF), composed of the C terminus...

... that in vivo conditional ablation of the focal adhesion kinase gene ( Fak ) from mouse hippocampal pyramidal cells impairs axon outgrowth and growth cone morphology during development, which leads to functional defects in neuronal connectivity. Time-lapse recordings and in vitro FRAP analysis indicate...

... morphogenesis. Importantly, we demonstrate that VEGF and NRP2 activate focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and promote FAK-dependent branching morphogenesis in vitro. The significance of this mechanism is substantiated by our finding that FAK activation is diminished significantly in developing MMTV-Cre;NRP2 loxP/loxP...

... in somites and the myotome, where it co-localizes with β1-integrin, vinculin and FAK. Inhibition of Ena/VASP function with dominant-negative mutants results in abnormal somite formation that correlates with later defects in intermyotomal junctions. Neutralization of Ena/VASP activity disrupts cell...

...Caroline Grabbe; Christos G. Zervas; Tony Hunter; Nicholas H. Brown; Ruth H. Palmer The mammalian focal adhesion kinase (FAK) family of non-receptor protein-tyrosine kinases has been implicated in controlling a multitude of cellular responses to the engagement of cell-surface integrins and G...