Dishevelled phosphorylation is concurrent with Wingless pathway activation. In the absence of signaling, Armadillo is targeted for proteolytic degradation through phosphorylation by Shaggy. Experiments suggest that upon Wnt signaling, part of the cytoplasmic pool of Dsh is phosphorylated and recruited to the membrane. Deletion analysis experiments have shown that the Dsh DEP domain is not required to induce Arm accumulation. The Dishevelled role in the tissue polarity pathway clearly indicates that, compared to its role in the Wingless pathway, different downstream components are involved.
Cells lacking dsh are unable to adopt the fates specified by Wingless.
Dishevelled is one element in a chain of interacting proteins that carry the wingless signal to sites within the cell, including the cell membrane and the nucleus. Phosphorylation is the most important biochemical mechanism for carrying signals between proteins. Phosphorylated DSH is correlated with high levels of cytoplasmic phosphorylated Armadillo . By symmetry is meant the positional repetition of a pattern on opposite sides of a dividing line or plane, distributed about a center or axis, resulting in geometric regularity. Symmetry is only one aspect of patterning.