Cell chirality: its origin and roles in left-right asymmetric development

Area of Science:

• Cell Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Biophysics

Background:

• Chirality is a fundamental property of biological molecules, essential for protein function.
• Cellular chirality, observed in single-celled protozoans and metazoans, influences left-right (LR) asymmetric development.
• Cortical inheritance, not genetics, determines chirality in some organisms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the prevalence and significance of cell chirality across different eukaryotic taxa.
• To investigate the role of cell chirality in left-right (LR) asymmetric morphogenesis.
• To determine if cell chirality is a general property of eukaryotic cells.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on cellular chirality in model organisms like Drosophila, Caenorhabditis elegans, and vertebrates.
• Analysis of studies on ciliate cortical structures and their inheritance.
• Examination of research on intrinsic cell chirality in cultured vertebrate cells.

Main Results:

• Cell chirality is observed in various metazoan tissues, driving LR asymmetric morphogenesis in Drosophila.
• Blastomere chirality in invertebrates like snails and C. elegans dictates subsequent LR asymmetric development.
• Cultured vertebrate cells exhibit intrinsic chirality in behavior and intracellular dynamics, suggesting a general property.

Conclusions:

• Cell chirality appears to be a conserved and general property of eukaryotic cells.
• Organ-intrinsic LR asymmetry, driven by cell chirality, may be a conserved mechanism for LR asymmetric development across phyla.
• Understanding cell chirality provides insights into fundamental biological processes and developmental mechanisms.