Intraflagellar transport protein RABL5/IFT22 recruits the BBSome to the basal body through the GTPase ARL6/BBS3
Bin Xue, Yan‐Xia Liu, Bin Dong, Jenna L. Wingfield, Mingfu Wu, Jun Sun, Karl F. Lechtreck, Zhen‐Chuan Fan
Abstract
Our functional, biochemical and single particle in vivo imaging assays show that IFT22 is an active GTPase with low intrinsic GTPase activity. IFT22 is part of the IFT-B1 subcomplex but is not required for ciliary assembly. Independent of its association to IFT-B1, IFT22 binds and stabilizes the Arf-like 6 GTPase BBS3, a BBS protein that is not part of the BBSome. IFT22/BBS3 associates with the BBSome through an interaction between BBS3 and the BBSome. When both IFT22 and BBS3 are in their guanosine triphosphate (GTP)-bound states they recruit the BBSome to the basal body for coupling with the IFT-B1 subcomplex. The GTP-bound BBS3 likely remains to be associated with the BBSome upon ciliary entry. In contrast, IFT22 is not required for the transport of BBSomes in cilia, indicating that the BBSome is transferred from IFT22 to the IFT trains at the ciliary base. In summary, our data propose that nucleotide-dependent recruitment of the BBSome to the basal body by IFT22 regulates BBSome entry into cilia.