Ras Homolog Gene Family, Member V (RHOV)

In vertebrates, the Rho family of GTPases is made of 20 members which regulate a variety of cellular functions, including actin cytoskeleton dynamics, cell adhesion and motility, cell growth and survival, gene transcription and membrane trafficking. The small GTPase RhoV is an essential regulator of neural crest induction in Xenopus.

RhoV mRNA is maternally expressed and accumulates shortly after gastrulation in the neural crest forming region. RhoV depletion impairs expression of the neural crest markers Sox9, Slug or Twist but has no effect on Snail induction. At the tailbud stage, RhoV knockdown causes a dramatic loss of cranial neural crest derived structures. All these defects are rescued by ectopic wild-type RhoV, whose overexpression on its own expands the neural crest territory.