FIG. 1.

Acoustic trauma causes strial pericyte protrusion and migration. (A) Schematic overview of cochlear blood supply in the cochlear lateral wall. The capillaries of the stria vascularis contain a rich population of pericytes. (B and C) Confocal low magnification images show pericyte distribution and morphology in control and loud sound-stimulated cochleae from fluorescent reporter mice (NG2⁺, red). (B, C) Pericytes are shown with a flat body and evenly distributed on strial vessel walls (labeled with GS-IB4, blue) under normal conditions under low and high magnification. (D) Pericyte protrusion and detachment is seen under loud sound-stimulated conditions (white arrows). (E, F, G, H) are high magnification confocal projection images showing a range of different patterns in pericyte migration under loud sound-stimulated conditions. (F) shows a pericyte process detaching from the capillary wall in a loud sound-stimulated mouse (green arrow). (E, G) show pericytes sending fine strands to neighboring pericytes (green arrow). (H) shows retraction of a pericyte away from the capillary wall (green arrow). (I) The schematic figure illustrates the variety of patterns of pericyte detachment. (J) In this TEM image, a pericyte is shown closely associated with an endothelial cell in a control mouse cochlea. (K) shows a pericyte soma dissociated from the capillary wall in a loud sound-stimulated mouse cochlea. (a and b) are close-up images respectively from regions of (a) and (b) in panels (J) and (K) showing the structure of the basement membrane under control and LSS conditions. (LSS: loud sound stimulation, EC: endothelial cell, PC: pericyte, BM: basement membrane)