After identifying a protein in Chlamydomonas that is required for the assembly of flagella, Pazour et al. (page 709) discovered that the murine homologue of the gene plays a critical role in the development of cilia in the kidney. The findings add to a body of data supporting a highly conserved mechanism for cilia assembly in eukaryotes, and suggest that defects in this process may underlie several genetic diseases.
The authors cloned the Chlamydomonas gene for IFT88, a subunit of a multiprotein complex involved in intraflagellar transport (IFT), the process that builds and maintains cilia and flagella. Cells lacking IFT88 fail to assemble flagella, making IFT88 the first IFT particle subunit shown to be required for this process. The sequence of IFT88 is homologous to that of the murine gene Tg737. It has been shown previously that mice with...
