Figure 1.

YAP/TAZ activity is tightly regulated—Hippo signaling and beyond. YAP/TAZ subcellular localization and transcriptional co-activator activity in specific contexts are mainly regulated by phosphorylation events. When core Hippo kinases are active (“on”), YAP/TAZ inactivating Ser-phosphorylation events promote cytoplasmic retention and/or degradation, whereas an inactive Hippo kinase cascade (“off”) and Tyr-phosphorylation results in their nuclear accumulation. YAP/TAZ act as prominent links between and integrators of several other signal pathways, such as Notch, GPCR, Wnt, BMP or TGFβ signaling, to name only a few well-studied examples.