Towards ciliary motion subtyping: representing patients as mixture of motion patterns

Cilia are microscopic hair like projections that lie on almost every cell of the body. Motile cilia have a rhythmic beating motion to clear mucus and irritants. If the mucociliary defense mechanism does not work properly, it leads to a wide spectrum of diseases called ciliopathies. Identifying ciliopathies early and implementing proactive therapies is clinically compelling to minimize procedural invasiveness. However, previous work in this area was limited to separating normal from abnormal ciliary motion, and ignored the existence of broader spectrum of ciliary beat patterns that may have clinical implications with different disorders. Hence, defining a universal, quantitative language that describes phenotypes of ciliary motion is of particular clinical and translational interest. The analysis presented here groups patients with similar ciliary motion patterns, establishing a platform that can unravel ciliary motion subtypes in patients.