Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1987 May;84(9):3064–3068. doi: 10.1073/pnas.84.9.3064

Mechanical relaxation of the hair bundle mediates adaptation in mechanoelectrical transduction by the bullfrog's saccular hair cell.

J Howard, A J Hudspeth
PMCID: PMC304803  PMID: 3495007

Abstract

Mechanoelectrical transduction by hair cells of the frog's internal ear displays adaptation: the electrical response to a maintained deflection of the hair bundle declines over a period of tens of milliseconds. We investigated the role of mechanics in adaptation by measuring changes in hair-bundle stiffness following the application of force stimuli. Following step stimulation with a glass fiber, the hair bundle of a saccular hair cell initially had a stiffness of approximately equal to 1 mN X m-1. The stiffness then declined to a steady-state level near 0.6 mN X m-1 with a time course comparable to that of adaptation in the receptor current. The hair bundle may be modeled as the parallel combination of a spring, which represents the rotational stiffness of the stereocilia, and a series spring and dashpot, which respectively, represent the elastic element responsible for channel gating and the apparatus for adaptation.

Full text

PDF
3064

Images in this article

3065Image
on p.3065

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Collins J. H., Borysenko C. W. The 110,000-dalton actin- and calmodulin-binding protein from intestinal brush border is a myosin-like ATPase. J Biol Chem. 1984 Nov 25;259(22):14128–14135. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Corey D. P., Hudspeth A. J. Analysis of the microphonic potential of the bullfrog's sacculus. J Neurosci. 1983 May;3(5):942–961. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.03-05-00942.1983. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Corey D. P., Hudspeth A. J. Ionic basis of the receptor potential in a vertebrate hair cell. Nature. 1979 Oct 25;281(5733):675–677. doi: 10.1038/281675a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Corey D. P., Hudspeth A. J. Kinetics of the receptor current in bullfrog saccular hair cells. J Neurosci. 1983 May;3(5):962–976. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.03-05-00962.1983. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Corey D. P., Hudspeth A. J. Mechanical stimulation and micromanipulation with piezoelectric bimorph elements. J Neurosci Methods. 1980 Dec;3(2):183–202. doi: 10.1016/0165-0270(80)90025-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Crawford A. C., Fettiplace R. The mechanical properties of ciliary bundles of turtle cochlear hair cells. J Physiol. 1985 Jul;364:359–379. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1985.sp015750. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Drenckhahn D., Kellner J., Mannherz H. G., Gröschel-Stewart U., Kendrick-Jones J., Scholey J. Absence of myosin-like immunoreactivity in stereocilia of cochlear hair cells. Nature. 1982 Dec 9;300(5892):531–532. doi: 10.1038/300531a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Holton T., Hudspeth A. J. The transduction channel of hair cells from the bull-frog characterized by noise analysis. J Physiol. 1986 Jun;375:195–227. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.1986.sp016113. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Howard J., Ashmore J. F. Stiffness of sensory hair bundles in the sacculus of the frog. Hear Res. 1986;23(1):93–104. doi: 10.1016/0378-5955(86)90178-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Hudspeth A. J., Corey D. P. Sensitivity, polarity, and conductance change in the response of vertebrate hair cells to controlled mechanical stimuli. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Jun;74(6):2407–2411. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.6.2407. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Hudspeth A. J., Jacobs R. Stereocilia mediate transduction in vertebrate hair cells (auditory system/cilium/vestibular system). Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1979 Mar;76(3):1506–1509. doi: 10.1073/pnas.76.3.1506. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Hudspeth A. J. Mechanoelectrical transduction by hair cells in the acousticolateralis sensory system. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1983;6:187–215. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ne.06.030183.001155. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Hudspeth A. J. The cellular basis of hearing: the biophysics of hair cells. Science. 1985 Nov 15;230(4727):745–752. doi: 10.1126/science.2414845. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Huxley A. F., Simmons R. M. Proposed mechanism of force generation in striated muscle. Nature. 1971 Oct 22;233(5321):533–538. doi: 10.1038/233533a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Koyama H., Lewis E. R., Leverenz E. L., Baird R. A. Acute seismic sensitivity in the bullfrog ear. Brain Res. 1982 Oct 28;250(1):168–172. doi: 10.1016/0006-8993(82)90964-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Macartney J. C., Comis S. D., Pickles J. O. Is myosin in the cochlea a basis for active motility? Nature. 1980 Dec 4;288(5790):491–492. doi: 10.1038/288491a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Ohmori H. Mechanoelectrical transducer has discrete conductances in the chick vestibular hair cell. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1984 Mar;81(6):1888–1891. doi: 10.1073/pnas.81.6.1888. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Pickles J. O., Comis S. D., Osborne M. P. Cross-links between stereocilia in the guinea pig organ of Corti, and their possible relation to sensory transduction. Hear Res. 1984 Aug;15(2):103–112. doi: 10.1016/0378-5955(84)90041-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Sheetz M. P., Spudich J. A. Movement of myosin-coated fluorescent beads on actin cables in vitro. Nature. 1983 May 5;303(5912):31–35. doi: 10.1038/303031a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Shotwell S. L., Jacobs R., Hudspeth A. J. Directional sensitivity of individual vertebrate hair cells to controlled deflection of their hair bundles. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1981;374:1–10. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1981.tb30854.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Smith T. G., Jr, Barker J. L., Smith B. M., Colburn T. R. Voltage clamping with microelectrodes. J Neurosci Methods. 1980 Dec;3(2):105–128. doi: 10.1016/0165-0270(80)90020-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Strelioff D., Flock A. Stiffness of sensory-cell hair bundles in the isolated guinea pig cochlea. Hear Res. 1984 Jul;15(1):19–28. doi: 10.1016/0378-5955(84)90221-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Tilney L. G., Derosier D. J., Mulroy M. J. The organization of actin filaments in the stereocilia of cochlear hair cells. J Cell Biol. 1980 Jul;86(1):244–259. doi: 10.1083/jcb.86.1.244. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES