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Developmental biology

A new spin on handed asymmetry

Nature volume 397, pages 295–298 (1999)Cite this article

In vertebrates, most internal organs develop asymmetrically with respect to the body's midline, with the liver on the right and the stomach on the left, for example. This phenomenon, known as left-right (L-R) asymmetry, raises an intriguing question — how is the early bilateral symmetry of the embryo first broken such that the L-R axis is always orientated the same way? A report by Nonaka et al.1 in Cell now provides a remarkable insight into this problem. They show that the mouse node, a cup-shaped cavity in the embryo's midline, uses anticlockwise rotation of cilia to create a directional flow of extraembryonic fluid. The authors propose that this ‘nodal flow’ concentrates critical L-R determinants to one side of the node, activating distinct downstream signalling pathways on the left and right sides of the embryo.

Despite these suggestive findings, the function of nodal cilia remained unclear. For one, nodal cilia do not share the ‘9+2’ organization of microtubule doublets typical of most motile cilia8,9. Moreover, attempts to assess the motion of these cilia directly yielded equivocal results8,9. Although one group8 reported motility, they saw no directionality to suggest that these cilia could bias L-R pattern.

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Figure 1: Monociliated cells on the ventral surface of the mouse node.
Figure 2: Proposed roles of cilia during left-right (L-R) patterning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Kyle J. Vogan & Clifford J. Tabin

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  1. Kyle J. Vogan
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  2. Clifford J. Tabin
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Vogan, K., Tabin, C. A new spin on handed asymmetry. Nature 397, 295–298 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/16796

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