CiliaBuilder2: a flexible ChimeraX bundle to visualize cilia and centriole structures in 3D
- 1McGill University
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.
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BibTeX
@misc{liu2026ciliabuilder2,
title = {{CiliaBuilder2: a flexible ChimeraX bundle to visualize cilia and centriole structures in 3D}},
author = {T. Liu and S. Chakraborty and K. H. Bui},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.15.759410},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.15.759410v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - CiliaBuilder2: a flexible ChimeraX bundle to visualize cilia and centriole structures in 3D
AU - T. Liu
AU - S. Chakraborty
AU - K. H. Bui
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.15.759410
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.15.759410v1
AB - 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.
ER -