Gene Critical to Early Development of Cilia Revealed

The functions of a gene responsible for anchoring cilia - sensory hair-like extensions present on almost every cell of the body, have been described by researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI). 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 ...