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Review
. 2017 Mar 1;9(3):a021998.
doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a021998.

Intraflagellar Transport and Ciliary Dynamics

Hiroaki Ishikawa  1 , Wallace F Marshall  1
Affiliations
Review

Intraflagellar Transport and Ciliary Dynamics

Hiroaki Ishikawa et al. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. .

Abstract

Cilia and flagella are microtubule-based organelles whose assembly requires a motile process, known as intraflagellar transport (IFT), to bring tubulin and other components to the distal tip of the growing structure. The IFT system uses a multiprotein complex with components that appear to be specialized for the transport of different sets of cargo proteins. The mechanisms by which cargo is selected for ciliary import and transport by IFT remain an area of active research. The complex dynamics of cilia and flagella are under constant regulation to ensure proper length control, and this regulation appears to involve regulation at the stage of IFT injection into the flagellum, as well as regulation of flagellar disassembly and, possibly, of cargo binding. Cilia and flagella thus represent a convenient model system to study how multiple motile and signaling pathways cooperate to control the assembly and dynamics of a complex cellular structure.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The architecture of cilia. Schematic, foreshortened drawing of a longitudinal section of the primary cilium. The inset shows cross sections of motile and primary cilia.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Intraflagellar transport. The anterograde intraflagellar transport (IFT) motor kinesin-2 transports IFT complexes A and B, axonemal proteins, and cytoplasmic dynein 2 to the tip of a cilium. At the tip of the cilium, anterograde IFT “trains” release axonemal proteins and rearrange their conformation for retrograde IFT. Cytoplasmic dynein 2 transports retrograde IFT trains to the cell body.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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