ABSTRACT
The cilium is a discrete organelle and an excellent model for systems biology studies, being less complex than a complete cell, tissue, organ, or organism. The majority of mammalian adherent epithelial cell lines can be induced to grow primary cilia in cell culture conditions, through simple serum starvation. Recent advances in stem cell culturing techniques now make it possible to culture cells which can be differentiated to form motile cilia. Functional genomics studies, in which the function of every gene in the genome is individually tested for its contribution to a particular phenotype, such as ciliogenesis, suggest that around 10–15% of the mammalian genome is required for ciliogenesis and cilium function. Ciliogenesis is also tightly linked to cell polarity. Cilia form on the apical cell surface of the polarized cells, after the basal body, derived from the mother centriole, migrates to the apical cell surface. Some cells polarize more easily in culture.
