Mammalian motile cilia: Structure, formation, organization, and function

Cilia are membrane-covered hair-like organelles built on specialized centrioles and conserved throughout eukaryotic evolution. They are either motile or immotile, serving respectively as versatile signaling antennae or elegant beating nanomachines. Accordingly, their dysfunctions cause a wide variety of developmental and degenerative disorders, which in human are syndromes termed ciliopathies. Motile cilia in mammals reside in epithelial cells. Their rapid, rhythmic beating facilitates reproduction, left-right patterning, and organ homeostasis by propelling directional gamete transport, nodal flow, cerebrospinal fluid circulation, and mucus clearance. They merge mostly as multicilia, with up to hundreds per cell. Multiciliated cells need not only to break the tight cellular control on centriole biogenesis and ensure accurate assemblies of numerous structural components for their formations, but to properly organize and polarize them for their functions as well. This review mainly focuses on the cell biology of mammalian motile cilia, with the mouse as the model organism.