Uncovering Cilia’s Secrets

Almost all animal cells have at least one cilium – a hair-like, membrane-bound organelle that protrudes from the cell surface. It may be singular and immotile, or form part of a large group of cilia that move rhythmically together, such as those on respiratory tract cells that help keep mucus moving. Despite how commonplace cilia are, their functions in many cells remain a mystery, which limits scientists’ understanding of ciliopathies – diseases in which cilia fail to grow or work properly causing severe and life-long symptoms. To figure out cilia’s various roles, scientists have now engineered human stem cells that entirely lack cilia (left). Comparing these cells with normal cilia-possessing cells (right, cilia coloured red) as the two are directed to become whichever cell type the researchers choose, should reveal how specific cell types are affected by cilia loss and potentially guide new ciliopathy treatments.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Image from work by Nelly M. Cruz and Raghava Reddy, and colleagues, Benjamin Freedman Lab
• Division of Nephrology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, April 2022