Review

The evolutionary history of effectors downstream of Cdc42 and Rac

Sophie Cotteret and Jonathan Chernoff*

Author Affiliations

Fox Chase Cancer Center, 7701 Burholme Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19111, USA

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Genome Biology 2002, 3:reviews0002-reviews0002.8 doi:10.1186/gb-2002-3-2-reviews0002

Published: 14 January 2002

Abstract

Cdc42 and Rac - ancient, highly conserved, small GTPases - mediate extracellular signals, triggering changes in transcription and in the actin cytoskeleton. Although dozens of proteins act downstream of these GTPases, a comparison of effector proteins from evolutionarily diverse organisms suggests that six groups of proteins serve as the core machinery for signaling from Cdc42 and Rac.