The primary cilium maintains all of the necessary machinery to generate and interpret cAMP signals within its tiny volume, leading to the supposition that ciliary cAMP provides unique biological instructions separate from those derived from the rest of the cell body. A new paper by Truong et al. has used optogenetic and chemogenetic tricks to selectively manipulate cAMP signaling within the primary cilium. Their data show that ciliary but not cytosolic message preferentially regulates transcriptional activity via the hedgehog pathway leading to actions on zebrafish development. Computer modeling provides a rational explanation as to how the geometry of this organelle enables it to tune out cAMP signals from the cell body in order to pick up messages generated in the cilium.

初级纤毛维持所有必要的机制，以在其微小的体积内产生和解释 cAMP 信号，从而假设纤毛 cAMP 提供了与来自细胞体其余部分的生物指令不同的独特生物指令。Truong 等人的一篇新论文。已经使用光遗传学和化学遗传学技巧来选择性地操纵初级纤毛内的 cAMP 信号传导。他们的数据表明，睫状体而非细胞质信息通过刺猬通路优先调节转录活性，从而对斑马鱼的发育产生影响。计算机建模为这种细胞器的几何形状如何使其能够从细胞体中调出 cAMP 信号以获取纤毛中产生的信息提供了合理的解释。