#cilia

[niqvassieart]

Euplotes ciliates resting and feeding. These single-celled organisms have cilia hairs which are bunched up into tufts called 'cirri' which function like little legs, allowing them to walk along the substrate.

This individual was found in a water sample from the Tama river in Tokyo, painted in gouache.

[candullcandle]

I can feel the cilia working overtime for this cough

[giftofgabber]

This sauce turns cilia into stranglers, gobblers, etc..

[bpod-bpod]

Visualing Function

Here, imaging-based CRISPR screening of the genome (to mutate genes of interest), allows cell-regulating molecules and modifications to be revealed in live and fixed cells. Primary cilia – whiskery functional projections found on most cell types – are studied here as a proof of concept and several previously unknown ciliary regulators identified and characterised, such as microprotein TZMP1. Shown are tadpole skin cells with cilia – left, unmanipulated and right, after CRISPR-targeting the gene encoding TZMP1

Read the published research article here

Video from work by Jingbo Sun and colleagues

Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Video contributed by the authors and originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Developmental Cell, November 2025

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[bpod-bpod]

Need to Beat

The tiny whiskery beating hairs called cilia present on many of our cells are vital for processes all over the body, such as in respiration and in the brain, wafting fluids in the right direction. So when affected by gene mutations causing ciliopathies (disorders in which cilia beat aberrantly or not at all ) the impact can be devastating. Here, studying frog ciliated cells researchers show, advancing understanding of its role in vertebrates, that function of a gene called Lrrc56 is essential for cilia action and provides insight into mechanisms underlying the inherited ciliopathy primary ciliary dyskinesia

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Nayeli G. Reyes-Nava and colleagues

Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, December 2025

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[bpod-bpod]

Wonky Antenna

If you tried to follow a recipe being broadcast on the radio, but your radio’s antenna was broken and the signal patchy, you might end up with garbled instructions and inedible dinner. A new study suggests something similar might be happening in patients with Carpenter syndrome – a condition which shares many clinical features with disorders caused by defective cilia (tiny hair-like projections that act as antennae or miniature motors). Researchers examined the effects of silencing the gene linked to Carpenter syndrome, RAB23, in mice, zebrafish, and stem cells induced from patient skin cells (pictured, green and red showing markers of functional stem cells). They discovered mutations in the gene cause misshapen or shortened cilia in some cells but not others, and impede crucial molecular signalling pathways. Direct evidence of these cell-specific impacts highlight dysfunctional cilia’s role in Carpenter syndrome, confirming it as a ciliopathy, deepening understanding of the condition’s development.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Wan Ying Leong & Catherine Hong Huan Hor, and colleagues

Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong; Neuroscience Academic Clinical Programme, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in PLOS Genetics, August 2025

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[thelovebudllc]

Transcription factors SP5 and SP8 regulate primary cilia formation in embryos

Some might say it looks like a finger. Others might see a worm. Scientists in the field often liken it to an antenna. The technical name is primary cilium. This slender, microscopic appendage juts out from the surface of most cells in the human body – and yet for many years, it was completely missing from textbook illustrations. Scientists began paying more attention to primary cilia around 2003.…

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[dr-afsaeed]

Transcription factors SP5 and SP8 drive primary cilia formation in mammalian embryos - New Study

Science, Volume 389, Issue 6763, August 2025. Summary Without specific content from Science, Volume 389, Issue 6763 (August 2025), a precise summary is impossible. However, generally, an issue of Science likely contains peer-reviewed research articles, reviews, and editorials spanning various scientific disciplines. Expect advancements in fields like biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, and…