Controlling the direction of division

Quyn and colleagues report that gut stem cells have a biased spindle orientation and asymmetric retention of label-retaining DNA. These features are lost in mouse and human tissues when the microtubule binding protein Apc is mutated. In the developing kidney, Apc acts downstream from primary cilium signaling to influence spindle orientation when noncanonical Wnt signaling predominates. Do gut stem cells also have primary cilia

Mechanisms of Ciliary Movement: Contributions from Electron Microscopy

A brief review of important contributions of electron microscopy to the study of ciliary motility is presented. The electron microscope was used to show the universality of axonemal structure of cilia, and to develop the sliding microtubule model of ciliary motility and later the switch point hypothesis to explain the conversion of sliding into bending. Unexpectedly, insights into the importance of cilia in human health have stemmed from these studies