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The Noncanonical Roles Of Two Primordial Molecules In Flagella, Xiaoyan Zhu

Dissertations (1934 -)

Motile cilia and flagella are ancient organelles that eukaryotic organisms today still rely on to thrive in their natural environment. Not surprisingly, accumulated evidence has shown that the intricate motility machinery, the microtubule-based axoneme, is evolutionarily conserved down to the molecular level. This notion is epitomized by the signature axonemal complex, the radial spoke (RS). The RS is part of a control center conferring the high frequency and tightly regulated movement. Key RS proteins discovered in biflagellate green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, are also generated by nearly all ciliated organisms, including Homo sapiens. Among them are two subunits from primordial protein …