Authors:

Christopher D'Acosta

Date Created:

Not specified

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About Paper:

Cdc14 is a family of highly conserved phosphatases in most eukaryotic organisms. In humans, mutations in Cdc14 cause improper maintenance of structure in cilia. This defect of cilia causes deafness as well as sterility due to a lack of sperm motility. It is unknown what the specific roles of Cdc14 are in the maintenance of cilia. We are using the cilliated protozoan species Tetrahymena thermophila as a model organism to test the specific functions of Cdc14 in promoting cilia function. Tetrahymena possesses 7 unique Cdc14 isoforms, and my goal was to test the substrate specificity of 2 of these isoforms in order to help determine their functions. I used the generic phosphatase substrate pNPP to confirm that the isoform TtCdc14-5 has phosphatase activity and is inhibited by sodium orthovandate. Interestingly, in an assay using phosphopeptide substrates, TtCdc14-5 had no noticeable phosphatase activity in contrast to all other known forms of Cdc14. This suggests that Cdc14-5 may not be a protein phosphatase but may target other molecules such as phospholipids for and points to a different function than other known variants of Cdc14. We are currently searching for alternative substrates for ttCdc14-5.

Source:

Purdue University / 2023

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Christopher D'Acosta