The primitive gut tube of mammals initially forms as a simple cylinder consisting of the endoderm-derived, pseudostratified epithelium and the mesoderm-derived surrounding mesenchyme. During mid-gestation a dramatic transformation occurs in which the epithelium is both restructured into its final cuboidal form and simultaneously folded and refolded to create intestinal villi and intervillus regions, the incipient crypts. Here we show that the mesenchymal winged helix transcription factor Foxl1, itself induced by epithelial hedgehog signaling, controls villification by activating BMP and PDGFRα as well as planar cell polarity genes in epithelial-adjacent telocyte progenitors, both directly and in a feed-forward loop with Foxo3.
Keywords: Villus formation; epithelial-mesenchymal cross talk; telocyte; transcription factor networks.