The cilium is a microtubule-based organelle critical for many cellular functions. Its assembly initiates at a basal body and continues as an axoneme that projects out of the cell to form a functional cilium. This assembly process is tightly regulated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProtein synthesis underpins cell growth and controls when cells commit to a new round of cell division at a point in late G1 of the cell cycle called Start. Passage through Start also coincides with the duplication of the microtubule-organizing centers, the yeast spindle pole bodies, which will form the 2 poles of the mitotic spindle that segregates the chromosomes in mitosis. The conserved Mps1p kinase governs the duplication of the spindle pole body (SPB) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is an ongoing need for antifungal agents to treat humans. Identification of new antifungal agents can be based on screening compounds using whole cell assays. Screening compounds that target a particular molecule is possible in budding yeast wherein sophisticated strain engineering allows for controlled expression of endogenous or heterologous genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCiliates are a diverse group of unicellular eukaryotes that vary widely in size, shape, body plan, and ecological niche. Here, we review recent research advances achieved with ciliate models. Studies on patterning and regeneration have been revived in the giant ciliate , facilitated by modern omics methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDoublet microtubules (DMTs) provide a scaffold for axoneme assembly in motile cilia. Aside from α/β tubulins, the DMT comprises a large number of non-tubulin proteins in the luminal wall of DMTs, collectively named the microtubule inner proteins (MIPs). We used cryoET to study axoneme DMT isolated from We present the structures of DMT at nanometer and sub-nanometer resolution.
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