Involvement of Wnt signaling in primary cilia assembly and disassembly

Abstract

The primary cilium is a nonmotile microtubule-based structure, which functions as an antenna-like cellular sensing organelle. The primary cilium is assembled from the basal body, a mother centriole-based structure, during interphase or a quiescent cell stage, and rapidly disassembles before entering mitosis in a dynamic cycle. Defects in this ciliogenesis dynamics are associated with human diseases such as ciliopathy and cancer, but the molecular mechanisms of the ciliogenesis dynamics are still largely unknown. To date, various cellular signaling pathways associated with primary cilia have been proposed, but the main signaling pathways regulating primary cilia assembly/disassembly remain enigmatic. This review describes recent findings in Wnt-induced primary cilia assembly/disassembly and potential future directions for the study of the cellular signaling related to the primary ciliogenesis dynamics.