Abstract
What do respiratory problems, male infertility and situs inversus (mirror positioning of internal organs) have in common? It has relatively recently been shown for some vertebrate species that transient, fluid-filled, microscopic structures in developing vertebrate embryos express cilia which generate fluid flow necessary for consistent determination of left from right. While much theoretical and experimental work has focused on mice, the organising structure in zebrafish, Kupffer’s Vesicle (KV), is less well-understood. Cells on the inner surface of KV express a single “whirling” cilium, which drive a complex, three-dimensional interior flow. This talk will focus on how cilium placement and orientation affect the bulk flow, and posit possible mechanisms through which this flow leads to left-right symmetry breaking in zebrafish, which is an important model organism for biomedical research.