WashU Ciliopathy Research Group

The House voted yesterday on the conferenced appropriations bill (H.R. 7148), passing it by a vote of 341 in favor and 88 against. This 954-page bill includes funding for NIH, CDC, and other federal science agencies.
The NIH’s overall budget increased by 0.6% compared to FY25.

Unfortunately, the CDC budget was reduced by 15.8%.
Write your senator as they vote next week on the bill

Listen to me folks. We all agree that this SCIENCV thing sucks. Extra work for no reason.

So let's all agree not to nitpick about things on the Biosketch when it's our turn to review grants. Be a good reviewer and let's not screw ourselves.

Yes, I'm talking to YOU!

Mark your calendar for the best #cilia conference out there! 👇

Our very own Susan @dutcherlab.bsky.social is presenting one of the keynotes!! 🙌

Happy #FluorescenceFriday 🔬 all!

Is that the Eye of Sauron? No, it's a developing mouse oocyte (beautiful cells to image btw). But what are those filaments inside the cell? Stay tuned 😉

Bummed to miss #ASCB this year (one of my fav meetings), but the lab is well represented!

Stop by poster B169 today and Maneesha will tell you all about her work on basal bodies and cilia homeostasis in multiciliated cells 👇 #CellBio2025

Another great review for lovers of #centrioles and #centrosomes, this one from our group members @ericabiven.bsky.social and @jenntrosome.bsky.social 👇😍

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I am excited to share our latest preprint describing comparative transciptomic analysis between primary ciliary dyskinesia and cystic fibrosis. The more we understand the pathways driving disease the better equipped we are to find a cure.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

WashU is in the house!

Susan and Moe in action at the CSH Asia conference on #cilia and #centrosomes in Suzhou, China.

WashU speakers on the schedule today! #CSHAsia

Big news from our group! 👏👏

Checkout the new preprint from @horanilab.bsky.social 👇

Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃

#Actin and #cilia fans, we have a #FREE ACCESS #Review #article available for you in #CYTOSKELETON! The Role of #Microfilaments in Cilia Formation and Function. Read it here for FREE: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Despite the mess, we are grateful to be funded, have exciting science happening, and have an opening for a postdoc!

If you are interested in sensory biology and esp in cilia, thermosensation, or interoception, and would like to join an interactive & supportive group - please email.

Please RT 🙏

Polychaete larva cilia currents in timelapse. #sciart #microscopy #plankton

New research has unravelled the mystery of how microscopic cilia choreograph their “Mexican wave”, enabling marine creatures to swim.

Cilia are tiny, hair-like protrusions found in many organisms. Yet despite decades of research, the mechanisms of cilia coordination remained disputed.

Our collaboration with @mbonhivers.bsky.social is now out in @plosbiology.org! 🎉Using U-ExM, we mapped the formation of the flagellar pocket collar in T. brucei. Huge thanks to everyone involved — one step closer to #PhDone!

#ExM #oneringtorulethemall #Bilbo1 #trypanosoma #protistsonsky

I am excited to share the new PCD diagnostic guidelines.
A great collaboration with PCD experts from all over the world.

publications.ersnet.org/content/erj/...

It's another NOA day!

So happy and relieved to finally get this. What started out as a crazy idea pitched to the @wu-ciliopathygroup.bsky.social team a couple of years ago is now a fully funded project.

Major thanks to NHLBI for continuing to fund our work on motile ciliopathies 🙏

BSCB GenSoc UK Cilia and Centrosome Network e-Symposia Series BSCB GenSoc UK Cilia and Centrosome Network e-Symposia Series

Peak #SummerFun- our amazing line-up for our 52nd @bscb-official.bsky.social @gensocuk.bsky.social @ukcilianetwork.bsky.social e-symposium 19/08/2025 15:00-17:45 is now live! Join us for all things #cilia & #centrosomes- free & open to all. Register for here- www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1220921258...

We'll be there 👌
#Cilia2027

Excited to be involved with this work driven by @dremilygoldberg.bsky.social and her team! Read the preprint now!

"Neutrophil TLR2 signaling promotes lipid accumulation and vascular plaque growth"

The nucleus is fantastic, but can it beat #cilia and #flagella 😉 here stained for tubulin (magenta) with an intraflagellar transport train (green) after #expansion microscopy and #STED or shown by classic TEM. JCS @jcellsci.bsky.social found the solution and is featuring both! 😍

Primary cilia and BBS4 are required for postnatal pituitary development Primary cilia orchestrate several signaling pathways, and their disruption results in pleiotropic disorders called ciliopathies. Bardet Beidl syndrome (BBS), one such ciliopathy, provides insights int...

‼️🚨Preprint alert! 🚨‼️
Excited to have some of my first works as a postdoc, and first corresponding author (!!), on biorxiv! This was a fun side quest of a project marrying a few things I deeply love, development, cilia, and hormones in the pituitary! Happy reading!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Juhi Narula and Sarah Wignall (@sadiewignall.bsky.social) identify a new role for the conserved kinase PLK-1 in suppressing centrosome maturation in oocytes, which surprisingly is opposite to its role in mitosis. rupress.org/jcb/article/...

#CellCycle #Genetics #Cytoskeleton #Development

Figure showing microtubule-nucleating activity of CDK5RAP2 scaffolds with γ-TuRCs.

Manolo Rios, Jeffrey Woodruff and colleagues use purified human proteins to define the minimal modules for centrosome scaffold assembly and microtubule aster nucleation.

journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Identification of new ciliary signaling pathways in the brain and insights into neurological disorders Primary cilia are conserved sensory hubs essential for signaling transduction and embryonic development. Ciliary dysfunction causes a variety of developmental syndromes with neurological features and ...

in vivo BioID (iBioID) labeling of primary cilia in neurons on mice and identifying new signaling pathways in them. Cool new work from Sarah Goatz's lab. www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

Cilia in the #brain display region-dependent oscillations of length and orientation by Roudabeh Vakil Monfared, Sherif Abdelkarim, Pieter Derdeyn, Kiki Chen, Hanting Wu, Kenneth Leong, Tiffany Chang, Justine Lee, Sara Versales, Surya M. Nauli, Kevin Beier, Pierre Baldi, Amal Alachkar In this study, we conducted high-throughput spatiotemporal analysis of primary cilia length and orientation across 22 mouse brain regions. We developed automated image analysis algorithms, which enabled us to examine over 10 million individual cilia, generating the largest spatiotemporal atlas of cilia. We found that cilia length and orientation display substantial variations across different brain regions and exhibit fluctuations over a 24-h period, with region-specific peaks during light-dark phases. Our analysis revealed unique orientation patterns of cilia, suggesting that cilia orientation within the brain is not random but follows specific patterns. Using BioCycle, we identified rhythmic fluctuations in cilia length across five brain regions: the nucleus accumbens core, somatosensory cortex, and the dorsomedial, ventromedial, and arcuate hypothalamic nuclei. Our findings present novel insights into the brain cilia dynamics, and highlight the need for further investigation into cilia’s role in the brain’s response to environmental changes and regulation of oscillatory physiological processes.

Cilia in the #brain display region-dependent oscillations of length and orientation @PLOSBiology.org

The human ciliopathy protein RSG1 links the CPLANE complex to transition zone architecture - Nature Communications The CPLANE complex is essential for ciliogenesis, and mutations to all but one subunit have been associated with ciliopathies. Here they identify three familial mutations in the final subunit, RSG1, t...

Cilia Alert! So excited to finally have this paper on the CPLANE complex out in @natcomms.nature.com! We show that RSG1 is a human ciliopathy protein and links CPLANE to the transition zone. 1/n

www.nature.com/articles/s41...