Netrins, a family of secreted molecules, play critical roles in axon guidance and cell migration during neuronal development 1,2. In addition to its role as a chemotropic molecule, netrin-1 also acts as a survival factor 3-7 . Both UNC5 (i.e. UNC5A, B, C or D) and DCC are transmembrane receptors for netrin-1 8 ,9. In the absence of netrin-1, DCC and UNC5 act as dependence receptors and trigger apoptosis 3,6, 10 . However, how netrin-1 suppresses the apoptotic activity of the receptors remains elusive. Here, we show that netrin-1 induces interaction of UNC5B with the brain specific GTPase PIKE-L. This interaction triggers activation of PI 3-kinase signaling, prevents UNC5B's proapoptotic activity and enhances neuronal survival. Moreover, this process tightly relies on Fyn as PIKE-L is tyrosine phosphorylated in response to netrin-1 and the netrin-1-mediated interaction of UNC5B with PIKE-L is inhibited in Fyn null mice. Thus, PIKE-L acts as a downstream survival effector for netrin-1 through UNC5B in the nervous system. PIKE-L is a brain specific GTPase, which binds and stimulates PI 3-kinase in a GTP-dependent manner 11, 12 . PIKE-L binds Homer, an adaptor protein for metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR). Activation of mGluRIs enhances formation of an mGluRI-Homer-PIKE-L complex, leading to activation of PI 3-kinase and prevention of neuronal apoptosis 13 . PIKE is also a substrate for caspases. PIKE can be phosphorylated on tyrosine residues by Fyn, leading to its resistance to caspase cleavage 14. To search for PIKE-L-binding proteins, we conducted yeast two-hybrid screening using GTPase domain as bait. Four out of twelve clones are both His and β-gal positive, one of which encodes the C-terminus of UNC5B ( Figure 1A). In HEK293 cells, transfected GFP-PIKE-L selectively binds to 569-946 fragment of UNC5B but not other fragments. Compared to the binding by the C-terminal motif (a.a. 569-946), truncation of death domain (a.a. 854-946) decreases UNC5B affinity to PIKE-L. Reciprocal immunoprecipitation reveals that the interaction occurs no matter PIKE-L or UNC5B is precipitated by its antibody ( Figure 1B, middle panels). Full-length UNC5B and its C-terminal fragment released after caspase cleavage 5 , 7 specifically interact with GTPase domain but not with other regions of PIKE-L, consistent with our yeast two-hybrid findings ( Figure 1B, right panels). We also 5To whom all correspondence should be addressed, Phone: 404-712-2814; Fax: 404-712-2979, kye@emory observed the robust interaction between endogenous PIKE-L and UNC5B in both the cortex and hippocampus of rat brain ( Figure 1C). Immunostaining of hippocampal and cortical primary neurons reveals that PIKE-L and UNC5B colocalize in the cell body and throughout all neuronal processes ( Figure 1D, left panel). The staining is specific as GST-PIKE-L (a.a. 268-384) antigen but not control GST abolishes PIKE-L staining in neurons ( Figure 1D, right panels).To examine whether netrin-1 modulates PIKE-L interaction with UNC5B, we cotransfected UNC5B into...