Asst. Prof. Dr. Sebiha ÇEVİK KAPLAN
Cilia are evolutionary conserved organelles extending from the cell surface of most eukaryotic cells to detect environmental stimuli, such as light and odors. Functional and structural defects in cilia are linked to a wide range of human diseases collectively called ciliopathies, characterised by a great variety of symptoms including retinal degeneration, infertility, obesity, skeletal defects, cystic kidney, polydactyly, and intellectual disability. Due to well known importance of cilia for human health, a range of approaches including proteomics, functional genomics and bioinformatics have been taken to determine ciliary components, thus leading to identification of known and putative cilia genes. Cildb, the SYSCILIA Gold Standard (SCGS) and CiliaCarta are excellent resources that present many known and putative ciliary genes. CiliaCarta has recently estimated that cilia may contain a total of 1200 genes despite experimentally proven genes for cilia biogenesis are less than 600. With a wealth of information, it has become more challenging to prioritize to functionally characterize putative ciliary genes. To give a priority to those genes that are yet to be functionally characterized, we are employing C. elegans as a model organism to uncover putative ciliapathy genes.
Contact Information:
E-mail: sebiha.cevik@agu.edu.tr
Phone: +90 352 224 88 00 (Ext: 7305)