Back

A Role for Importin α in Ciliogenesis and Cilia Length Regulation during Nephrogenesis

Mosqueda, N.; Sutton, P. J.; Brownlee, C. W.

2025-04-14 cell biology
10.1101/2025.04.10.648263 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Cilia are evolutionary conserved microtubule-based organelles involved in many biological processes. Motile cilia facilitate fluid flow, while primary cilia transduce developmental and growth signals. Defects in cilia structure or function can lead to a spectrum of ciliopathies. Ciliogenesis and length regulation depend on protein transport to the ciliary base, but the molecular mechanisms remain unclear. We demonstrate that the nuclear transport protein, importin , when membrane-localized via palmitoylation, or non-palmitoylated in the cytoplasm, localizes to the base or lumen of primary and motile cilia. There we find it is required to initiate ciliogenesis and maintain proper cilia length. We found importin binds Cep164, Cep78, and Arl13b, proteins essential for ciliogenesis and length maintenance. Disrupting importin palmitoylation in Xenopus laevis lead to abnormal kidney morphology and reduced renal primary cilia. These findings reveal a novel pathway through which importin contributes to ciliogenesis and advance understanding of ciliopathy etiology.

Matching journals

The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.