Wnt reception at the membrane is complex and not fully understood. CD44 is a major Wnt target gene in the intestine and is essential for Wnt-induced tumor progression in colorectal cancer. Here we show that CD44 acts as a positive regulator of the Wnt receptor complex. Downregulation of CD44 expression decreases, whereas CD44 overexpression increases Wnt activity in a concentration-dependent manner. Epistasis experiments place CD44 function at the level of the Wnt receptor LRP6. Mechanistically, CD44 physically associates with LRP6 upon Wnt treatment and modulates LRP6 membrane localization. Moreover, CD44 regulates Wnt signaling in the developing brain of Xenopus laevis embryos as shown by a decreased expression of Wnt targets tcf-4 and en-2 in CD44 morphants.

No abstract

No abstract

The United States Sentencing Commission’s guidelines for the sentencing of organizations found guilty of violating federal laws recently became effective. Dramatically increased penalties are possible under these gudelines, but so too is a substantial reduction in the penalties imposed on organizations that have an effective program in place to prevent and detect violations. This provides corporations with a tremendous new incentive in inaugurate organizational ethics audits both to avoid violations in the first instance and to reduce the penalty imposed in the event that a violation occurs. We argue, however, that there have always been very good reasons for organizations to conduct such audits, which emphasize the identification of the organizational factors that create incentives for unethical behavior. Corporate ethics programs initiated without reference to such factors cannot reasonably be expected to be effective in improving a company’s internal ethical environment.

Virtually every empirical inquiry of issues relevant to applied business ethics involves the asking of questions that are sensitive, embarrassing, threatening, stigmatizing, or incriminating. Accordingly, questions of this sort are likely to result in unsatisfactory outcomes: 1) many individuals will not respond; and/or, 2) many individuals will not respond candidly. An obvious objective, then, is to use a method to collect information which increases participation, provides absolute anonymity, and does not jeopardize subjects’ privacy. The randomized response technique (RRT) is a method designed to realize this promise. We provide here an overview of RRT approaches and applications which may be effectively used in empirical examinations of potentially sensitive issues in business ethics.