The putative protein kinase Stk36 is essential for ciliogenesis and CSF flow by associating with Ulk4

Abstract Motile cilia lining on the ependymal cells are crucial for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow and its dysfunction is often associated with hydrocephalus. Unc51‐like‐kinase 4 (Ulk4) was previously linked to CSF flow and motile ciliogenesis in mice, as the hypomorph mutant of Ulk4 ( Ulk4 tm1a/tm1a ) developed hydrocephalic phenotype resulted from defective ciliogenesis and disturbed ciliary motility, while the underling mechanism is largely obscure. Here, we report that serine/threonine kinase 36 (STK36), a paralog of ULK4, directly interacts with ULK4 and this was demonstrated by yeast two‐hybrid (Y2H) in yeast and coimmunoprecipitation (co‐IP) assays in HEK293T cells, respectively. The interaction region was confined to their respective N‐terminal kinase domain. The hypomorph mutant of Stk36 ( Stk36 tmE4−/− ) also developed progressive hydrocephalus postnatally and dysfunctional CSF flow, with multiple defects of motile cilia, including reduced ciliary number, disorganized ciliary orientation, defected axonemal structure and inconsistent base body (BB) orientation. Stk36 tmE4−/− also disturbed the expression of Foxj1 transcription factor and a range of other ciliogenesis‐related genes. All these morphological changes, motile cilia defects and transcriptional dysregulation in the Stk36 tmE4−/− are practically copied from that in Ulk4 tm1a/tm1a mice. Taken together, we conclude that both Stk36 and Ulk4 are crucial for CSF flow, they cooperate by direct binding with their kinase domain to regulate the Foxj1 transcription factor pathways for ciliogenesis and cilia function, not limited to CSF flow. The underlying molecular mechanism probably conserved in evolution and could be extended to other metazoans.