Washington University in St. Louis (WU)
Primary cilia are organelles that project from the surface of cells and can detect biological processes occurring in the extracellular environment. Primary cilia are also signaling hubs and express many GPCRs that activate signaling cascades both locally in the cilium and in the cell body. Our lab has demonstrated that ß-cell primary cilia are critical for regulation of ß-cell function, with loss of ß-cell primary cilia perturbing insulin secretion. This subsequently dysregulates islet hormone secretion as a result of impaired paracrine interactions between ß, a, and d cells in the islet. Our lab has also discovered that loss of ß-cell primary cilia induces the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) unfolded protein response. My work focuses on further characterizing this ER stress response and investigating the mechanism by which loss of ß-cell primary cilia induces cell stress during basal conditions, and exacerbates cell stress in the presence of pharmacological stressors.