Image: UGA Cellular Biology is proud to present Dr. Jenna Wingfield. Dr. Wingfield’s research focused on the cilium, which performs sensory and motility roles for cells. She used in vivo microscopy to study the journey of IFT trains as they emerge from the ciliary base, become loaded with tubulin, traffic to the ciliary tip, remodel into retrograde trains, and traffic back to the base. She found that trains form in a stepwise manner, with IFT-A arriving at the ciliary base first, followed by IFT-B, and then kinesin. IFT dynein and tubulin are loaded briefly before the trains exit the cell body, and she uncovered that IFT54 makes a tripartite tubulin binding site with the established IFT81/74 site on IFT-B. Once these trains reach the tip, they dissociate and the rest of the train fragments. She found that these fragments are smaller ‘train cars’, with IFT-A, IFT-B and dynein still associated. Train cars from multiple anterograde trains will recombine to become retrograde trains and undergo trafficking to the base once dynein is activated. Once at the base, the components of the train separate, IFT-A and dynein will return to the cell body pool and a portion of IFT-B will be immediately reused on retrograde trains. Type of News/Audience: Graduate students
