Publication Date:
2014-11-15
Description:
Existence of cellular structures with specific size raises a fundamental question in biology: How do cells measure length? One conceptual answer to this question is by a molecular ruler, but examples of such rulers in eukaryotes are lacking. In this work, we identified a molecular ruler in eukaryotic cilia and flagella. Using cryo-electron tomography, we found that FAP59 and FAP172 form a 96-nanometer (nm)-long complex in Chlamydomonas flagella and that the absence of the complex disrupted 96-nm repeats of axonemes. Furthermore, lengthening of the FAP59/172 complex by domain duplication resulted in extension of the repeats up to 128 nm, as well as duplication of specific axonemal components. Thus, the FAP59/172 complex is the molecular ruler that determines the 96-nm repeat length and arrangements of components in cilia and flagella.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Oda, Toshiyuki -- Yanagisawa, Haruaki -- Kamiya, Ritsu -- Kikkawa, Masahide -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Nov 14;346(6211):857-60. doi: 10.1126/science.1260214.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan. ; Department of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan. Department of Life Science, Faculty of Science, Gakushuin University, 1-5-1 Mejiro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo, 171-8588, Japan. ; Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan. mkikkawa@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25395538" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Axonemal Dyneins/*chemistry/genetics/ultrastructure
;
Chlamydomonas/*physiology/ultrastructure
;
Cilia/physiology/ultrastructure
;
Eukaryotic Cells/physiology/ultrastructure
;
Flagella/*physiology/ultrastructure
;
Protein Conformation
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
