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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Jun 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Neurosci. 2019 Apr 13;42(6):414–424. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2019.03.006

Figure 3. A Potential Mechanism for the Repair of Stereocilia F-actin Core Damage.

Figure 3.

Overstimulation can cause the appearance of gaps in phalloidin staining of the F-actin cores of cochlear hair cell stereocilia. Gaps in F-actin staining in damaged stereocilia likely represent areas of disorganized or depolymerized actin. Immunostaining for β- and γ-actin is enriched at these sites, along with cofilin and espin. DNaseI staining is also observed, indicating that the actin is monomeric. The presence of monomeric actin, along with cofilin, which can nucleate actin at high concentrations, and espin, an actin crosslinker, suggests that localized F-actin remodeling is occurring to repair the damage [45]. However, there is no definite evidence that the damage is actually repaired.