2016/08/29 by Elisa Herawati, Daisuke Taniguchi, Hatsuho Kanoh +3 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Genetic and Kidney Cyst Diseases #Micro and Nano Robotics #Protist diversity and phylogeny
paper · pdf · doi:10.1083/jcb.201601023
openalex publication_date 2016/08/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Multiciliated cells (MCCs) promote fluid flow through coordinated ciliary beating, which requires properly organized basal bodies (BBs). Airway MCCs have large numbers of BBs, which are uniformly oriented and, as we show here, align linearly. The mechanism for BB alignment is unexplored. To study this mechanism, we developed a long-term and high-resolution live-imaging system and used it to observe green fluorescent protein-centrin2-labeled BBs in cultured mouse tracheal MCCs. During MCC differentiation, the BB array adopted four stereotypical patterns, from a clustering "floret" pattern to the linear "alignment." This alignment process was correlated with BB orientations, revealed by double immunostaining for BBs and their asymmetrically associated basal feet (BF). The BB alignment was disrupted by disturbing apical microtubules with nocodazole and by a BF-depleting Odf2 mutation. We constructed a theoretical model, which indicated that the apical cytoskeleton, acting like a viscoelastic fluid, provides a self-organizing mechanism in tracheal MCCs to align BBs linearly for mucociliary transport.