KIF3A

Cilia effects upon perturbation of KIF3A

Cilia number / % ciliated:

Decreased cilia number

Loss-of-function effect:

Shorter cilia

Overexpression effect:

Unknown

Ciliogenesis screen results (6 screens)

• Kim2016: No effect
• Wheway et al. 2015 (siRNA) [siRNA]: No effect PMID:26167766
• Breslow et al. 2018 (CRISPR) [CRISPR]: Positive Regulator (Hh signaling, casTLE effect=-6.4) PMID:29459680
• Roosing et al. 2015 (siRNA) [siRNA]: No effect PMID:26595381
• Pusapati et al. 2018 (CRISPR) [CRISPR]: Positive Regulator (Hh signaling, neg_rank=814, lfc=-2.87) PMID:30270045
• Elliott et al. 2025 (CRISPRa) [CRISPRa]: Disassembly Trigger (casTLE Effect=-3.42) PMID:41160700

Ciliopathy associations

• Retinal Dystrophy/Degeneration

References: PMID:32386558

Subcellular localization

centrosome, cilia, cytosol, endosome, microtubules, basal body

References: PMID:41005307, PMID:23386061, PMID:22357948

Functional category

• Ciliary assembly/disassembly
• Trafficking (BBSome, small GTPases, vesicular transport, ATPases)
• Actin & cytoskeleton regulation
• Metabolism
• Signaling (Hedgehog, GPCRs, ion channels)

Function

Required for cilia assembly, function and organisation of subdistal appendiges of centrioles. Recruits p150Glued to the subdistal appendages of mother centrioles, critical for centrosomes to function as microtubule-organising centres and to recruit other subdistal appendage components such as Ninein and Cep170. Loss of Kif3a abrogates microtubule anchoring and ciliary basal foot formation (23386061).Conditional deletion of Kif3a resulted in the reduction of primary cilia number by 51% and length by 27% in osteoblasts(PMID: 22357948).