Feinberg
Northwestern Medicine | Northwestern University | Faculty Profiles

News Center

  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
    • Podcast
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
    • Podcast
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Home » New Insights into Cilia Formation
Scientific Advances

New Insights into Cilia Formation

By Will DossJan 8, 2020
Share
Facebook Twitter Email
Brian Mitchell, PhD, associate professor of Cell and Molecular Biology, was a co-author of the paper published in Nature Cell Biology.

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered a clever evolutionary quirk in multi-ciliated cells, which help drive fluid flow in a variety of body systems.

The findings, published in Nature Cell Biology, suggest that small structures called deuterosomes are not as vital as previously thought, contributing to a new understanding of how these cells develop.

“Our lab, as well as many others, has been trying to identify novel deuterosome proteins in order to understand the process, but it now looks like that might not be the right direction to be focusing on,” said Brian Mitchell, PhD, associate professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and a co-author of the study.

Multi-ciliated cells (MCCs) use small microscopic “hairs” called cilia, beating in a coordinated manner to move materials and fluid around the body, including the movement of mucus and debris out of lungs or to circulate cerebral spinal fluid in the brain. These cilia sprout from centrioles, small organelles on the surface of MCCs. Typical cells usually have just two centrioles and during cell division these centrioles are duplicated once, resulting in a daughter cell with two centrioles.

In MCCs, however, there are dozens or hundreds of centrioles to support the many cilia needed to propel fluid, necessitating a different parent organelle, according to Mitchell.

Illustration of the ciliated epithelia on surface of Xenopus skin (cilia are green, cell borders are red).

“There’s this massive increase in centrioles, and this could not be as easily templated off of existing centrioles,” said Mitchell, who is also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. “Many years ago, it was discovered that MCCs contained a novel structure — the deuterosome — from which most of the centrioles nucleated off.”

Recent work in the Mitchell laboratory has suggested important proteins travel to the deuterosome and regulate centriole formation, furthering suspicion that these deuterosomes are crucial for creating centrioles and therefore functional cilia.

In the current study, Mitchell and his colleagues created MCCs without deuterosomes or centrioles, to explore how the cells were affected. Surprisingly, they weren’t.

Instead, the cells created the correct amount of centrioles and cilia, without parent deuterosomes or centrioles.

“These cells were still able to find a way to nucleate new centrioles, with nothing to template them from,” Mitchell said.

The discovery of this secondary centriole production mechanism underscores their importance, and not just in humans — cilia serve crucial functions in many animals, such as to propel aquatic animals or facilitate feeding.

“There must be a lot of evolutionary pressure to make sure that MCCs can generate many centrioles,” Mitchell said. “It is likely that this back-up mechanism is the result of this pressure and the overall importance of these cells to survival.”

Mitchell said he believes this discovery will prompt some second thoughts among fellow scientists studying deuterosomes, who may shift from examining deuterosomes to other aspects of cilia or centriole formation.

“I think this paper will change the direction of numerous labs as they refocus on the problem, knowing that these key structures are not essential to the process,” Mitchell said.

This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grants R01GM089970, R01GM114119 and R01GM133897 and the American Cancer Society Scholar grant RSG-16-156-01.

Cell and Developmental Biology Research
Share. Facebook Twitter Email

Related Posts

Fathers’ Presence During Childhood Predicts Adult Testosterone Levels

Jun 29, 2022

Epigenetic Biomarkers Predict CVD Risk

Jun 28, 2022

Hospitals Bound to Patient Safety Rules that Aren’t all Backed by Evidence

Jun 24, 2022

Comments are closed.

Latest News

Fathers’ Presence During Childhood Predicts Adult Testosterone Levels

Jun 29, 2022

Epigenetic Biomarkers Predict CVD Risk

Jun 28, 2022

Student Spearheads Ukraine Aid Efforts

Jun 27, 2022

Hospitals Bound to Patient Safety Rules that Aren’t all Backed by Evidence

Jun 24, 2022

Identifying Protein Interactions that Promote Cancer Growth

Jun 24, 2022
  • News Center Home
  • Categories
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
  • News Archives
  • About Us
Flickr Photos
20220617_NM_0434
20220617_NM_0858
20220617_NM_0643
20220617_NM_0835
20220617_NM_0544
20220617_NM_0450
20220617_NM_0790
20220617_NM_0811
20220617_NM_0851
20220617_NM_0696
20220617_NM_0779
20220617_NM_0838

Northwestern University logo

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

RSS Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flickr YouTube Instagram
Copyright © 2022 Northwestern University
  • Contact Northwestern University
  • Disclaimer
  • Campus Emergency Information
  • Policy Statements

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.