CiliaBuilder2: a flexible ChimeraX bundle to visualize cilia and centriole structures in 3D

Abstract

Centrioles and cilia are large organelles essential for cell division, motility, and signalling. They are characterized by distinctive, nine-fold symmetric microtubule doublets or triplets decorated with periodic protein complexes. While cilia and centrioles are highly conserved across eukaryotes, their composition and structure vary considerably between species and tissue types. Advances in cryo-electron tomography and single-particle cryo-electron microscopy have recently led to a surge in structural data for ciliary components. However, visualizing these components within the ciliary context remains challenging due to their scale and the diverse data formats involved, such as density maps, atomic models, and 3D geometric objects. Here, we introduce CiliaBuilder2, a toolset integrated into UCSF ChimeraX that enables simple, flexible visualization of complete ciliary structures from diverse data types using parametric calculations.