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Abstract
Cilia are cylindrical appendages that protrude out of the cell. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has 2 cilia which are named as trans and cis with respect to their location from eyespot. The trans cilium extends from the older, mature basal body while the cis cilium extends from the daughter basal body. The axonemes of the two flagella have known to demonstrate opposite beating pattern in response to free Ca2+. We report here for the first time a biochemical marker Carbonic anhydrase 6, that preferentially localizes in the trans flagellum, a asymmetry established during ciliogenesis. We show that both IFT and BBSomes are required for the protein to maintain its asymmetric distribution. We propose that CAH6, a biochemical marker for cilia asymmetry contributes towards the functional difference between the cis and trans and explore the mechanisms utilized by the cell to establish this asymmetry.