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Cilia Assembly Mechanisms

Guest edited by Dr Lotte Pedersen.

This series in Cilia celebrates the twentieth anniversary of Intraflagellar Transport (IFT) with a collection of original research articles and reviews focused on different aspects of IFT and cilia assembly mechanisms. Intraflagellar Transport is a bidirectional microtubule-based trafficking system required for the assembly and maintenance of most eukaryotic cilia. Since the landmark discovery of IFT twenty years ago by Joel Rosenbaum’s laboratory, tremendous progress has been made in our understanding of cilia biology and function.

Perhaps one of the most significant advancements in cilia biology during the past two decades is the realization that cilia not only play important roles in cell motility or sensory perception in specialized cell types like photoreceptors and olfactory neurons, but are involved in regulating various signaling pathways and developmental processes throughout most of our body. Consequently, it is now clear that a growing number of pleiotropic diseases called ciliopathies are caused by mutations in genes that affect cilia assembly or function. Contributions include structural and functional studies of IFT particle proteins, different model systems for studying IFT, ciliary import mechanisms and vesicle trafficking, and the relationship between cilia and the cell cycle.

The Guest Editor will consider non-commissioned articles submitted for publication in this thematic series. This collection of articles has not been sponsored and articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer review process. The Guest Editor declares no competing interests.

View all collections published in Cilia.

  1. Assembly of primary cilia relies on vesicular trafficking towards the cilium base and intraflagellar transport (IFT) between the base and distal tip of the cilium. Recent studies have identified several key re...

    Authors: Kenneth B Schou, Stine K Morthorst, Søren T Christensen and Lotte B Pedersen
    Citation: Cilia 2014 3:6
  2. Most motile cilia and flagella have nine outer doublet and two central pair (CP) microtubules. Outer doublet microtubules are continuous with the triplet microtubules of the basal body, are templated by the ba...

    Authors: Karl-Ferdinand Lechtreck, Travis J Gould and George B Witman
    Citation: Cilia 2013 2:15