IFT-81 and IFT-74 are required for intraflagellar transport in C. elegans.
Intraflagellar transport (IFT) is essential machinery for biogenesis and maintenance of cilia in many eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. A large number of polypeptides are known to be involved in IFT, but the physiological role of each component is not fully elucidated. Here, we identified a C. elegans orthologue of a Chlamydomonas reinhardtii IFT component, IFT-81, and found that its loss-of-function mutants show an unusual behavioral property and small body size. IFT-81 is expressed in sensory neurons, and localized at the base of cilia. The similar phenotypes with ift-81 mutants were also observed in several IFT mutants, suggesting these defects are caused by inability of IFT. We also demonstrated that IFT-81 interacts and co-localizes with IFT-74, which is another putative component of IFT. The ift-74 loss-of-function mutants showed phenocopies with ift-81 mutants, suggesting IFT-81 and IFT-74 play comparable functions. Moreover, ift-81 and ift-74 mutants similarly exhibited weak anomalies in cilia formation and obvious disruptions of transport in mature cilia. Thus, we conclude that IFT-81 and IFT-74 coordinately act in IFT in C. elegans sensory cilia.
Kobayashi
Tetsuo
T
Department of Physiology, Tokyo Women's Medical University School of Medicine, 8-1 Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8666, Japan.
Gengyo-Ando
Keiko
K
Ishihara
Takeshi
T
Katsura
Isao
I
Mitani
Shohei
S
D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D001693:Biological Transport, Active; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D002633:Chemotaxis; D002923:Cilia / Q000502:physiology; D005407:Flagella / Q000502:physiology*; D017238:Genes, Helminth; D009154:Mutation; D009475:Neurons, Afferent / Q000502:physiology; D010641:Phenotype
D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D002352:Carrier Proteins