Cilia News and Research

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Genetic On-Off Switch for Cilia Formation Uncovered

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.

2 Sep 2025

How Primary Cilia Shape the Fate of Fat Precursor Cells

Too much fat can be unhealthy: how fat cells, so-called adipocytes, develop, is crucial for the function of the fat tissue.

21 Aug 2025

Parkinson’s Gene Mutation Blocks Vital Neuroprotective Signals

GBA1 mutations impair ciliary Hedgehog signaling in Parkinson's disease, reducing neuroprotective factors and highlighting a shared pathogenic pathway.

7 Aug 2025

New Insights into How Cilia Move and Power Cellular Motion

A team led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers has uncovered the atomic structure of a protein complex pivotal to the function of motile cilia, the hair-like structures extending from the surfaces of many cell types that generate their movement.

23 Jul 2025

Study Finds Protein Cleavage Essential for Healthy Cilia and Cell Signaling

New research by Sumeda Nandadasa, PhD, reveals how a key protein associated with Meckel-Gruber syndrome, nephronophthisis, Joubert syndrome and other ciliopathies is cut in half to perform two separate functions, both of which are fundamental to the healthy development of children.

30 Jun 2025

Anthrobots Reveal How Cells Can Build New Shapes Without Genetic Edits

Modern humans have existed for over 200,000 years, and each new generation has begun with a single cell-dividing, changing shape and function, organizing into tissues, organs, and limbs.

23 Jun 2025

Breakthrough Gene Discovery Uncovers a Master Switch for Food Intake

The Gpr45 gene is linked to food intake regulation, offering insights for obesity therapies. Study utilizes Automated Meiotic Mapping for gene identification.

6 Jun 2025

Fluid Dynamics of Stentors Offers New Insight Into Evolution of Multicellular Life

Life emerged on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago. The "primordial soup theory" proposes that chemicals floating in pools of water, in the presence of sunlight and electrical discharge, spontaneously formed organic molecules.

1 Apr 2025

Coffee's Bitter Taste Linked to Genetics and Roasting Process

Why does coffee taste more bitter to some people than it does to others? Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich have now come closer to answering this question.

30 Jan 2025

Bacterial Buckling: Filamentous Cyanobacteria Bend Under Pressure

Filamentous cyanobacteria buckle at a certain length when they encounter an obstacle. This was discovered by the research group of Stefan Karpitschka, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and professor at the University of Konstanz.

17 Jun 2024

Multiciliated Cell Differentiation Regulated by an Alternative Cell Cycle

A fertilized egg can develop into a baby through the amazing process of cell division, while a malignant cell can become a malignant tumor. Since there is so much on the line, nature maintains strict control over it through a mechanism known as the cell cycle that scientists once believed they thoroughly understood.

7 Jun 2024

Neuroscientists Uncover Significance of Glial Cells in Brain Communication

Neuroscientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center have found that an often-overlooked type of brain cell called glia has more of a role in brain function than previously thought.

29 Feb 2024

Novel Amino Acid Nanoparticles Offer Hope for Fighting Multi-Drug Resistant Cancers

Amino acids, such as tyrosine and tryptophan, are the fundamental building blocks that make up proteins.

9 Jan 2024

Mathematical Recipe for Sperm Tail Motion Discovered

Patterns of chemical interactions are thought to create patterns in nature such as stripes and spots. This new study shows that the mathematical basis of these patterns also governs how the sperm tail moves.

27 Sep 2023

NSL Complex Regulates Intraciliary Transport Genes in Multiple Cell Types

The non-specific lethal (NSL) complex is a chromatin-associated factor that has been shown in both fruit flies and mammals to regulate the expression of thousands of genes. Abrogation of the NSL genes causes the organism to die, which gives rise to the complex’s unusual name.

28 Aug 2023

UCL Scientists Visualize the Molecular 'Nano-Machinery' That Causes Cilia to Beat

The first image of the structures that power human cilia – the tiny, hairlike projections that line our airways – has been produced by a team involving UCL researchers and could lead to much-needed treatments for people with rare cilial diseases.

14 Jun 2023

FDA-approved compound promotes photoreceptor survival in lab models of inherited retinal ciliopathy

A National Eye Institute-led team has identified a compound already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that keeps light-sensitive photoreceptors alive in three models of Leber congenital amaurosis type 10 (LCA 10), an inherited retinal ciliopathy disease that often results in severe visual impairment or blindness in early childhood.

30 Mar 2023