What do stereocilia do

He taught himself everything and ended up publishing beautiful papers on the cochlea, in a retina lab! That was very impressive.

I have no doubt that Basile will continue to make important contributions and will become a leader in his field. Mencken: 'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. Tarchini joined the JAX faculty in The complex genetics of musical talent Are musicians born or made? Exploring the genetics of musical ability using absolute pitch.

Tarchini is also an accomplished jazz musician who once considered taking the path of the professional performer instead of the scientist.

A musician-scientist who studies hearing? And in fact, his research interests, while staying in the inner ear, are moving to include the vestibular system, which is located right next to the cochlea. Tarchini has already shown he can boldly and successfully shift his research focus. Stay tuned for interesting discoveries. We use cookies to personalize our website and to analyze web traffic to improve the user experience. You may decline these cookies although certain areas of the site may not function without them.

Please refer to our privacy policy for more information. What is Personalized Medicine? Genetics vs. Assistant Professor Basile Tarchini, Ph. Did you hear that sound? Conclusions and Perspectives In sensory hair cells, rootlets play an essential role in ensuring that the pivot point of stereocilia, the locus of greatest mechanical stress, is durable.

Figure 3. Acknowledgments We thank Jocelyn Krey for comments on this manuscript. Conflicts of Interest The authors declare no conflict of interest. References 1. Pollard T. Cellular motility driven by assembly and disassembly of actin filaments. Actin, a central player in cell shape and movement. Chhabra E. The many faces of actin: Matching assembly factors with cellular structures.

Cell Biol. Michelot A. Building distinct actin filament networks in a common cytoplasm. Tilney L. The organization of actin filaments in the stereocilia of cochlear hair cells. Actin filaments, stereocilia, and hair cells of the bird cochlea. How the actin filaments become organized in developing stereocilia and in the cuticular plate.

DeRosier D. The structure of the cuticular plate, an in vivo actin gel. Cotanche D. Development of hair cell stereocilia in the avian cochlea.

Hirokawa N. Interactions between actin filaments and between actin filaments and membranes in quick-frozen and deeply etched hair cells of the chick ear.

Duckert L. Ultrastructural observations on regenerating hair cells in the chick basilar papilla. Blest A. The cytoskeleton of microvilli of leech photoreceptors. A stable bundle of actin microfilaments.

Cell Tissue Res. Organization of actin, myosin, and intermediate filaments in the brush border of intestinal epithelial cells. Horridge G. Statocysts of medusae and evolution of stereocilia. Tissue Cell. Salisbury J. Calcium-induced contraction of the rhizoplast of a quadriflagellate green alga. Striated flagellar roots: Isolation and partial characterization of a calcium-modulated contractile organelle. Wolfrum U. Cytoskeletal elements in arthropod sensilla and mammalian photoreceptors.

Chen J. Rootletin organizes the ciliary rootlet to achieve neuron sensory function in Drosophila. Worley L. The structure of ciliated epithelial cells as revealed by the electron microscope and in phase contrast. Yang J. Rootletin, a novel coiled-coil protein, is a structural component of the ciliary rootlet.

The ciliary rootlet maintains long-term stability of sensory cilia. Hudspeth A. Roberts W. Hair cells: Transduction, tuning, and transmission in the inner ear. Pickles J. Cross-links between stereocilia in the guinea pig organ of Corti, and their possible relation to sensory transduction.

Fettiplace R. The physiology of mechanoelectrical transduction channels in hearing. Flock A. Actin filaments in sensory hairs of inner ear receptor cells. Three sets of actin filaments in sensory cells of the inner ear. Identification and functional orientation determined by gel electrophoresis, immunofluorescence, and electron microscopy.

Studies on the sensory hairs of receptor cells in the inner ear. Acta Otolaryngol. Pollock L. The cuticular plate: A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside a hair cell. Birth Defects Res. C Embryo Today. Slepecky N. Actin-binding and microtubule-associated proteins in the organ of Corti.

LMO7 deficiency reveals the significance of the cuticular plate for hearing function. Francis S. A short splice form of Xin-actin binding repeat containing 2 XIRP2 lacking the Xin repeats is required for maintenance of stereocilia morphology and hearing function. Scheffer D. XIRP2, an actin-binding protein essential for inner ear hair-cell stereocilia. Cell Rep. The ultrastructure of the kinocilium of the senosry cells in the inner ear and lateral line organs. Itoh M.

Structure of the hair rootlets on cochlear sensory cells by tannic acid fixation. Preservation and visualization of actin-containing filaments in the apical zone of cochlear sensory cells. Immunoelectron microscopic and immunofluorescent localization of cytoskeletal and muscle-like contractile proteins in inner ear sensory hair cells.

Actin filaments, stereocilia, and hair cells: How cells count and measure. Furness D. The dimensions and composition of stereociliary rootlets in mammalian cochlear hair cells: Comparison between high- and low-frequency cells and evidence for a connection to the lateral membrane. Anniko M. Cytodifferentiation of cochlear hair cells. Kitajiri S. Distribution and polarity of actin in the sensory hair cells of the chinchilla cochlea.

Dominguez R. Actin structure and function. Vandekerckhove J. At least six different actins are expressed in a higher mammal: An analysis based on the amino acid sequence of the amino-terminal tryptic peptide.

Differential distribution of beta- and gamma-actin in guinea-pig cochlear sensory and supporting cells. Arima T. Three-dimensional visualizations of the inner ear hair cell of the guinea pig. It is impossible the study the movement of the human cilia because the sensory cells are deeply embedded in thick bone, but in guinea pigs and gerbils the inner ear is surrounded by thin bone. Using a special in-house designed microscope, the scientists have been able to observe the sound-induced ciliary motion.

The scientists show that the stereocilia's ability to change length was greater when the electric potential around the sensory cells was low, which is known to happen in connection with noise damage and age-related hearing loss. The voltage drop causes the hairs to become overly soft, thus impairing ear function.

If we can use a drug to restore the cilia's normal stiffness we could make the ear work better, but this is something for the distant future, if it is even possible. What we must do now is to discover the exact mechanism that controls ciliary stiffness. Materials provided by Karolinska Institutet. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Cochlear, as well as vestibular, sensory cells are called hair cells because they are characterised by having a cuticular plate with a tuft of stereocilia bathing in the surrounding endolymph.

The cell body itself is localised in the perilymph compartment see transverse section of the organ of Corti. Schematically, both types of cells, inner hair cells IHCs and outer hair cells OHCs , differ by their shape and the pattern of their stereocilia. This number is ridiculously low, when compared to the millions of photo-receptors in the retina or chemo-receptors in the nose!

In addition, hair cells share with neurons an inability to proliferate they are differentiated - this means that the final number of hair cells is reached very early in development around 10 weeks of fetal gestation ; from this stage on our cochlea can only lose hair cells. Nucleus, 2. Stereocilia, 3. Cuticular plate, 4. Radial afferent ending dendrite of type I neuron , 5.