ITC investigation of cellular regulation by GTPases

The cilium is a cellular organelle best known as the ‘tail’ of sperm cells that drive their movement towards the oocyte for fertilization. Furthermore, cilia are found on olfactory neurons and on photoreceptor cells of our eyes and are thus important sensory organelles for smell and vision. In this project we will quantitatively study how small GTPases associate with nucleotides and with other proteins to regulate the formation and function of cilia. These data will help us understand what goes wrong in ciliopathy diseases causing blindness or infertility because of faulty regulation of cilium formation.