Tubulin tyrosination/detyrosination regulate the affinity and sorting of intraflagellar transport trains on axonemal microtubule doublets

Aditya Chhatre, Ludek Stepanek, Adrian Pascal Nievergelt, Gonzalo Alvarez Viar, Stefan Diez () and Gaia Pigino ()
Additional contact information
Aditya Chhatre: TUD Dresden University of Technology
Ludek Stepanek: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Adrian Pascal Nievergelt: Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Gonzalo Alvarez Viar: Human Technopole
Stefan Diez: TUD Dresden University of Technology
Gaia Pigino: TUD Dresden University of Technology

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Cilia assembly and function rely on the bidirectional transport of components between the cell body and ciliary tip via Intraflagellar Transport (IFT) trains. Anterograde and retrograde IFT trains travel along the B- and A-tubules of microtubule doublets, respectively, ensuring smooth traffic flow. However, the mechanism underlying this segregation remains unclear. Here, we test whether tubulin detyrosination (enriched on B-tubules) and tyrosination (enriched on A-tubules) have a role in IFT logistics. We report that knockout of tubulin detyrosinase VashL in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii causes frequent IFT train stoppages and impaired ciliary growth. By reconstituting IFT train motility on de-membranated axonemes and synthetic microtubules, we show that anterograde and retrograde trains preferentially associate with detyrosinated and tyrosinated microtubules, respectively. We propose that tubulin tyrosination/detyrosination is crucial for spatial segregation and collision-free IFT train motion, highlighting the significance of the tubulin code in ciliary transport.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56098-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56098-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56098-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().