The development and functions of multiciliated epithelia

Abstract

Multiciliated cells are epithelial cells that are in contact with bodily fluids and are required for the proper function of major organs including the brain, the respiratory system and the reproductive tracts. Their multiple motile cilia beat unidirectionally to remove particles of external origin from their surface and/or drive cells or fluids into the lumen of the organs. Multiciliated cells in the brain are produced once, almost exclusively during embryonic development, whereas in respiratory tracts and oviducts they regenerate throughout life. In this Review, we provide a cell-to-organ overview of multiciliated cells and highlight recent studies that have greatly increased our understanding of the mechanisms driving the development and function of these cells in vertebrates. We discuss cell fate determination and differentiation of multiciliated cells, and provide a comprehensive account of their locations and functions in mammals.

Albatross/FBF1 contributes to both centriole duplication and centrosome separation

“…Finally, the prospect of a correlation between Albatross function and multiple‐ciliogenesis and centriole multiplication may be attractive (Herawati et al, ; Spassky & Meunier, ; Tang, ) because Albatross localizes to the ciliary base in the mouse bronchus and even at multiplicated centrioles before ciliogenesis in normal human bronchial epithelial cells undergoing differentiation at the air–liquid interface (ALI, Supporting Information Figure S1d,e; Suprynowicz et al, ; You, Richer, Huang, & Brody, ). Genome‐editing methods that can analyze single‐nucleotide mutations (Kwart, Paquet, Teo, & Tessier‐Lavigne, ; Ochiai et al, ) will be necessary to further understand the centrosomal function of Albatross.…”

Once and only once: mechanisms of centriole duplication and their deregulation in disease

“…One striking example is in multiciliated epithelial cells that line the airways, ventricles and oviducts of vertebrates. These specialized cells form hundreds of centrioles that serve as basal bodies for formation of multiple cilia 126 . However, as we will describe in the following sections, in general aberrations to centriole number are not well-tolerated in cycling cells and can contribute to pathologies.…”

GemC1 is a critical switch for neural stem cell generation in the postnatal brain

“…Radial glial cells consist a population which generates all the major cellular components of the adult cortex, including the adult NSCs and multiciliated ependymal cells (Lim & Alvarez‐Buylla, ; Spassky & Meunier, ). Given that GemC1 deletion prevents radial glial cells to acquire the ependymal fate, we hypothesized that these cells might acquire an alternative fate.…”