Cep128 associates with Odf2 to form the subdistal appendage of the centriole.

The mother centriole in a cell has two appendages, the distal appendage (DA) and subdistal appendage (SDA), which have roles in generating cilia and organizing the cellular microtubular network, respectively. In the knockout (KO) cells of Odf2, the component of the DA and SDA, both appendages simultaneously disappear. However, the molecular mechanisms by which the DA and SDA form independently but close to each other downstream of Odf2 are unknown. Here, using super-resolution structured illumination microscopy (SR-SIM), we found that the signal for GFP-tagged Odf2 overlapped considerably with that of immunofluorescently labeled Cep128. We further found that Cep128 knockdown (KD) caused the dissociation of other SDA components from the centriole, including centriolin, Ndel1, ninein and Cep170, whereas Odf2 was still associated with the centriole. In contrast, the DA components remained associated with the centriole in Cep128 KD cells. Consistent with this observation, we identified Cep128 as an Odf2-interacting protein by immunoprecipitation. Taken with the finding that Cep128 deletion decreased the stability of centriolar microtubules, our results indicate that Cep128 associates with Odf2 in the hierarchical assembly of SDA components to elicit the microtubule-organizing function.