NIH Study Reveals Gene Critical to the Early Development of Cilia
Tuesday, July 1, 2014 - 13:30
in Biology & Nature
Researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have described the functions of a gene responsible for anchoring cilia - sensory hair-like extensions present on almost every cell of the body. They show in a mouse model that without the gene Cc2d2a, cilia throughout the body failed to grow, and the mice died during the embryonic stage. The finding adds to an expanding body of knowledge about ciliopathies, a class of genetic disorders that result from defects in the structure or function of cilia.