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Updated: Feb 12, 2026

Studying Wnt Signaling During Patterning of Conducting Airways
Published on: October 16, 2016
LGR5 and BMI1 Increase Pig Intestinal Epithelial Cell Proliferation by Stimulating WNT/β-Catenin Signaling
Xiang-Guang Li1,2, Zhe Wang3, Rong-Qiang Chen4
1College of Animal Science, South China Agricultural University/Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition Control/National Engineering Research Center for Breeding Swine Industry, Guangzhou 510642, China. xgli@gdut.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Leucine-rich repeat-containing G protein-coupled receptor 5 (LGR5) and B-cell-specific Moloney murine leukemia virus insertion site 1 (BMI1) are markers of fast-cycling and quiescent intestinal stem cells, respectively. To determine the functions of these proteins in large animals, we investigated their effects on the proliferation of intestinal epithelial cells from pigs. Our results indicated that LGR5 and BMI1 are highly conserved proteins and that the pig proteins have greater homology with the human proteins than do mouse proteins. Overexpression of either LGR5 or BMI1 promoted cell proliferation and WNT/β-catenin signaling in pig intestinal epithelial cells (IPEC-J2). Moreover, the activation of WNT/β-catenin signaling by recombinant human WNT3A protein increased cell proliferation and LGR5 and BMI1 protein levels. Conversely, inhibition of WNT/β-catenin signaling using XAV939 reduced cell proliferation and LGR5 and BMI1 protein levels. This is the first report that LGR5 and BMI1 can increase proliferation of pig intestinal epithelial cells by activating WNT/β-catenin signaling.
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