Notching up another pathway

The Notch proteins play a vital role in cell fate decisions in both invertebrate and vertebrate development. Careful analysis of this role has led to a model of signalling downstream of these receptors, via the CSL (CBF1, Suppressor of Hairless, Lag-1) family of transcription factors. There have been suggestions, however, that Notch can signal through other pathways. In the current paper, Ramain et al.((1)) provide compelling evidence for Notch signalling through a CSL-independent pathway and they demonstrate that the cytoplasmic protein, Deltex, is required for this signal. In addition, they show that Writ signalling may regulate this Deltex-dependent signal. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.