Cilia articles from across Nature Portfolio

Intraflagellar transport (IFT) ensures delivery of selected proteins into cilia. The IFT protein complexes IFT-A and IFT-B polymerize at the base of the cilium to form an anterograde train that facilitates cargo import, whereas remodelling into a retrograde train at the ciliary tip enables cargo export.

Müller, Klena et al. provide comprehensive insights into beta cell cilia structure, their interaction with islet cells and islet innervation. Their data imply that these cilia are elective compartments for contact with the cholinergic nervous system.

LRRK2 variants are linked to Parkinson’s disease. Here, the authors solve the Cryo-EM structure of LRRK2 complexed to RAB12 and demonstrate that their interaction regulates cilia formation in astrocytes.

Atherosclerosis is associated with the dysregulation of lipid metabolism in vascular endothelial cells. Here, the authors show that the accumulation of lipid droplets in vascular endothelial cells disrupts endothelial ciliation and contributes to atherosclerosis by reducing cytosolic palmitic acid.

Mice lacking TUBB4B are profoundly deaf due to defects in both the middle and inner ear consisting in microtubule alterations in cochlear supporting cells and motile cilia defects in epithelial cells.

Two studies have applied a mechanical stimulus directly to a cilium, independent of a chemical signal, and demonstrated that force-based bending of a single nodal axoneme is sufficient to induce intraciliary Ca²⁺ flux in a PKD2-dependent manner, which propagates to drive asymmetric gene expression.

Elif Nur Firat-Karalar brings to our attention the early works by Sergei Sorokin that paved the way for research into the biogenesis and function of primary cilia.

Gadadhar et al. report that tubulin glycylation enables sustained motion of sperm by regulating the beating of sperm flagella.

Researchers have sought to understand the function and regulation of the motor protein dynein since its discovery more than 50 years ago¹. Dynein-2 is one of the motors that move the intraflagellar transport (IFT) trains ― large protein complexes that are needed for the assembly and function of eukaryotic cilia and flagella. Toropova et al. report the single-particle cryo-EM structure of the human dynein-2 complex², which unexpectedly reveals two different conformations of the motor subunit tails. One tail forms a zigzag that matches the periodicity of the IFT trains, which reinforces the auto-inhibition of dynein motor activity and the binding of multiple dynein-2 complexes along the train during anterograde transport.

A new study reveals a developmental basis for mitral valve prolapse, caused by altered primary cilia-mediated regulation of extracellular matrix deposition during development, and suggests that mutations in primary cilia genes can be the cause of mitral valve prolapse in some patients.