Mutations in zebrafish leucine-rich repeat-containing six-like affect cilia motility and result in pronephric cysts, but have variable effects on left-right patterning

Cilia defects have been implicated in a variety of human diseases and genetic disorders, but how cilia motility contributes to these phenotypes is still unknown. To further our understanding of how cilia function in development, we have cloned and characterized two alleles of seahorse, a zebrafish mutation that results in pronephric cysts. seahorse encodes Lrrc6l, a leucine-rich repeat-containing protein that is highly conserved in organisms that have motile cilia. seahorse is expressed in zebrafish tissues known to contain motile cilia. Although mutants do not affect cilia structure and retain the ability to interact with Disheveled, both alleles of seahorse strongly affect cilia motility in the zebrafish pronephros and neural tube. Intriguingly, although seahorse mutations variably affect fluid flow in Kupffer's vesicle, they can have very weak effects on left-right patterning. Combined with recently published results, our alleles suggest that the function of seahorse in cilia motility is separable from its function in other cilia-related phenotypes.