“…Motile cilia (hundreds per cell) are primarily involved in fluid movements. In contrast, immotile cilia (or primary cilia) are solitary (one per cell); extend from the anchoring basal body; and function as cellular "antennae" to coordinate various signaling pathways (Ishikawa and Marshall, 2011) such as Notch1 (Liu et al, 2007;Samsa et al, 2015;Grisanti et al, 2016;Li et al, 2016), Hedgehog (Echelard et al, 1993), Wnt (Lienkamp et al, 2012), Platelet-derived growth factor (Pdgf) (Schneider et al, 2005;Clement et al, 2013b), and TGFß (Clement et al, 2013a), as well as calcium sinks (Delling et al, 2013) and potentially as mechanosensors on endothelial cells (Jin et al, 2014). Although primary cilia have been previously linked to congenital heart malformations, such as heterotaxy and atrioventricular septal defects (Li et al, 2004;Hoffmann et al, 2009;Friedland-Little et al, 2011;Hoffmann et al, 2014;Li et al, 2015), the role of these structures in the aortic valves is unknown.…”