1. Academic Validation
  2. Ktu/PF13 is required for cytoplasmic pre-assembly of axonemal dyneins

Ktu/PF13 is required for cytoplasmic pre-assembly of axonemal dyneins

  • Nature. 2008 Dec 4;456(7222):611-6. doi: 10.1038/nature07471.
Heymut Omran 1 Daisuke Kobayashi Heike Olbrich Tatsuya Tsukahara Niki T Loges Haruo Hagiwara Qi Zhang Gerard Leblond Eileen O'Toole Chikako Hara Hideaki Mizuno Hiroyuki Kawano Manfred Fliegauf Toshiki Yagi Sumito Koshida Atsushi Miyawaki Hanswalter Zentgraf Horst Seithe Richard Reinhardt Yoshinori Watanabe Ritsu Kamiya David R Mitchell Hiroyuki Takeda
Affiliations

Affiliation

  • 1 Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Hospital Freiburg Mathildenstrasse 1, D-79106 Freiburg, Germany. heymut.omran@uniklinik-freiburg.de
Abstract

Cilia and flagella are highly conserved organelles that have diverse roles in cell motility and sensing extracellular signals. Motility defects in cilia and flagella often result in primary ciliary dyskinesia. However, the mechanisms underlying cilia formation and function, and in particular the cytoplasmic assembly of dyneins that power ciliary motility, are only poorly understood. Here we report a new gene, kintoun (ktu), involved in this cytoplasmic process. This gene was first identified in a medaka mutant, and found to be mutated in primary ciliary dyskinesia patients from two affected families as well as in the pf13 mutant of Chlamydomonas. In the absence of Ktu/PF13, both outer and inner dynein arms are missing or defective in the axoneme, leading to a loss of motility. Biochemical and immunohistochemical studies show that Ktu/PF13 is one of the long-sought proteins involved in pre-assembly of dynein arm complexes in the cytoplasm before intraflagellar transport loads them for the ciliary compartment.

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