Dissecting the Axoneme Interactome THE MAMMALIAN ORTHOLOGUE OF CHLAMYDOMONAS PF6 INTERACTS WITH SPERM-ASSOCIATED

The axoneme central apparatus is thought to control flagellar/ciliary waveform and maintain the structural in-tegrity of the axoneme, but proteins involved in these processes have not been fully elucidated. Moreover the network of interactions among them that allows these events to take place in a compact space has not been defined. PF6, a component of the Chlamydomonas central apparatus, is localized to the 1a projection of the C1 microtubule. Mutations in the Chlamydomonas PF6 gene result in flagellar paralysis. We characterized human and murine orthologues of PF6. The murine Pf6 gene is ex-pressed in a pattern consistent with a role in flagella and cilia, and the PF6 protein is indeed localized to the central apparatus of the sperm flagellar axoneme. We discovered that a portion of PF6 associates with the mammalia