The Antenna’s All the Difference: How Does Primary Cilium Presence Alter Microtubule Organization in Cultured Mammalian Cells?
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Cilia are found on most cells in the human body. Cilia are thin, 1-5μm long projections from the cell surface and play a role in cell signaling, mechanosensing, and cell cycle regulation. Centrioles are required for cilia assembly and are also found in almost every human cell. Centrioles must also function as part of the Microtubule Organizing Center (MTOC), or centrosome in animal cells, and are segregated to the mitotic spindle poles. Interestingly, even in mammalian cells that have a cilium in interphase, centrioles lack a cilium when the mitotic spindle forms, raising the question: how does cilium presence affect MTOC activity and spindle formation? To address this question, I used chemical and genetic biology tools to manipulate ciliation states in mammalian cells and observe the effect on properties of the MTOC. First, cilia number was manipulated to determine whether ciliated centrioles are capable of forming functional MTOCs. I found that ciliated MTOCs nucleated microtubules at higher initial quantities than nonciliated centrioles in both monociliated and multiciliated cells. Second, the effect of extended cilium presence was tested by forcing cells with stabilized cilia into mitosis. Mitosis could occur while some form of the cilium was present, but partial disassembly occurred in most cases and may be necessary for proper mitotic progression. These results suggest ciliated centrioles have robust MTOC activity in interphase but the presence of a cilium restricts successful mitosis. Regulation of microtubule organization capacity dictated by cilia presence may be another mechanism of cilia-related cell cycle control, with implications in cancers like medulloblastoma, where persistent signaling through cilium-dependent mechanisms results in abnormal cell proliferation.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 2021 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Tsai, Anais |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Stearns, Tim |
| Advisor | Feldman, Jessica |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Biology, 2021 |
Subjects
| Subject | Biology |
|---|---|
| Subject | cell biology |
| Subject | cilia |
| Subject | centrioles |
| Subject | microtubules |
| Subject | mitosis |
| Subject | spindle |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-SA).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Tsai, Anais; Stearns, Tim; and Feldman, Jessica. (2021). The Antenna’s All the Difference: How Does Primary Cilium Presence Alter Microtubule Organization in Cultured Mammalian Cells?. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/sp431mt2067
Collection
Undergraduate Theses, Department of Biology, 2020-2021
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- anatsai@stanford.edu
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