Abstract
Although the superficial appearance of the vertebrate body plan is left-right symmetric, the inner organs of vertebrates exhibit a strikingly asymmetric arrangement. It has been shown that this left-right asymmetry is induced early during embryonic development and the result of a fluid flow generated by the clockwise rotation of cilia, which are are motile, hair-like cellular appendages. What determines the specific handedness of these ciliary rotations is the subject of ongoing debate. Based on a three-dimensional theoretical description of the ciliary geometry we discuss the bending modes generated by the cooperativity of force generating dynein motors working against elastic microtubules within cilia. Taking into account both bending and twisting of the ciliary structure, we find that despite the chirality of the ciliary structure, cilia can in principle generate clockwise as well as anticlockwise twirling beat patterns. However, our results show that the axoneme's chirality leads to one sense of rotation being selected dynamically for given parameter values and properties of dynein motors. This dynamic selection of asymmetric states is analogous to how the direction of motion of a motor protein moving along a filament.
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