title: Epsilon-tubulin is an essential component of the centriole.
abstract: Centrioles and basal bodies are cylinders composed of nine triplet microtubule blades that play essential roles in the centrosome and in flagellar assembly. Chlamydomonas cells with the bld2-1 mutation fail to assemble doublet and triplet microtubules and have defects in cleavage furrow placement and meiosis. Using positional cloning, we have walked 720 kb and identified a 13.2-kb fragment that contains epsilon-tubulin and rescues the Bld2 defects. The bld2-1 allele has a premature stop codon and intragenic revertants replace the stop codon with glutamine, glutamate, or lysine. Polyclonal antibodies to epsilon-tubulin show peripheral labeling of full-length basal bodies and centrioles. Thus, epsilon-tubulin is encoded by the BLD2 allele and epsilon-tubulin plays a role in basal body/centriole morphogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics,Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri 63110, USA. dutcher@genetics.wustle.edu
authors.forename: Susan K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Dutcher
authors.forename: Naomi S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Morrissette
authors.forename: Andrea M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Preble
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rackley
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stanga
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002502:Centrioles / Q000378:metabolism*; D002696:Chlamydomonas / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008870:Microtubules / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015800:Protozoan Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D014404:Tubulin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D020033:Protein Isoforms; D015800:Protozoan Proteins; D014404:Tubulin