The non-motile primary cilium is a single, microtubule-based hair-like projection that emanates from most, if not all, non-dividing mammalian cells. Enriched in a variety of signalling receptors and accessories, the cilium mediates crucial sensory and regulatory functions during development and postnatal tissue homoeostasis. Maintenance of ciliary morphology and function requires continuous IFT (intraflagellar transport), and recent findings have shed light on some molecular details of how ciliogenesis is dependent on targeted exocytic membrane trafficking from the Golgi. The ARL [Arf (ADP ribosylation factor)-related] small GTPase Arf4 functions in TGN (trans-Golgi network) sorting of cilia-targeted rhodopsin into carrier vesicles, while Arl6 (Arf-like 6) and Arl13b regulate aspects of ciliary transport and IFT. Ciliogenesis and ciliary functions are also regulated by small Rabs. Rab8a, in conjunction with Rab11a, and via its interaction with a multitude of proteins associated with the ciliary basal body and axoneme/membrane, appears to be critical for ciliogenesis. Rab8's close homologue Rab10 may also play a ciliogenic role in some cells. Rab23, the depletion or inactivation of which affects cilia formation, may regulate specific ciliary protein targeting and turnover, particularly those involved in Shh (Sonic hedgehog) signalling. Recent findings have also implicated Ran, a small GTPase better known for nuclear import, in ciliary targeting of the KIF17 motor protein.We highlight and discuss recent findings on how Rabs and other small GTPases mediate ciliogenesis and ciliary traffic.

a b s t r a c tThe Rab family of GTPases are regulators of eukaryotic vesicular membrane traffic, while modulation of actin dynamics is a function conventionally associated with the Rho family of GTPases. Rab35 is a Rab protein with both plasma membrane and endosomal localization, and has been implicated in diverse processes that include T-cell receptor recycling, oocyte yolk protein recycling and cytokinesis. Rab35 regulates neurite outgrowth in neuronal-like cells, and can induce protrusions even in typically non-adherent Jurkat T-cells. Recent evidence indicates that Rab35's activity, particularly the ability to mediate protrusive outgrowths, is due to its direct influence on actin dynamics. This can occur via activation of the Rho family of GTPases, or through the engagement of its effector fascin, an actin bundling protein.

The small GTPase Rab23 is an antagonist of sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling during mouse development. Given that modulation of Shh signaling depends on the normal functioning of the primary cilium, and overexpression of Evi5L, a putative Rab23 GTPase-activating protein (GAP), leads to reduced ciliogenesis, Rab23 could have a role at the primary cilium. Here, we found that wild-type Rab23 and the constitutively active Rab23 Q68L mutant were enriched at the primary cilium. Therefore, we tested the role of Rab23 in the ciliary targeting of known cargoes and found that ciliary localization of the kinesin-2 motor protein Kif17 was disrupted in Rab23-depleted cells. Co-immunoprecipitation and affinity-binding studies revealed that Rab23 exists in a complex with Kif17 and importin β2 (the putative Kif17 ciliary import carrier), implying that Kif17 needs to bind to regulatory proteins like Rab23 for its ciliary transport. Although a ciliary-cytoplasmic gradient of nuclear Ran is necessary to regulate the ciliary transport of Kif17, Rab23 and Ran appear to have differing roles in regulating the ciliary entry of Kif17. Our findings have uncovered a hitherto unknown effector of Rab23 and demonstrate how Rab23 could mediate the transport of Kif17 to the primary cilium.