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. 2022 Sep 26;13:962227. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2022.962227

Figure 6.

Figure 6

Quantitative analysis of the displacement of the outer hair cell (OHC) pre-synaptic ribbon complexes in PrphKO cochleae. (A,B) Examples of CtBP2/RIBEYE immunolabelling (green puncta, arrows) for WT and KO cochleae (50 μm cryosections; single confocal optical sections from z stacks shown). Note the apical displacement of the OHC synaptic ribbons in the KO above the equator of the nucleus (dashed lines). DC, Deiters' cells; ISP, inner spiral plexus; IHC, inner hair cell; DAPI nuclear labeling (blue). (C) Location of the synaptic ribbons relative to the OHC nuclei. Synaptic ribbon distribution from 175 WT OHC from 5 mice; 214 PrphKO OHC ribbons from 6 mice. The average number of ribbons per OHC was ~ 2. (D) Comparison of average distribution from the WT and KO mouse OHC ribbon complexes parsed as below or above the nucleus. The data indicate a significant migration of the synaptic ribbons away from the basal (synaptic) pole in the KO, consistent with loss of type II afferent fiber synapses (t-test). Box plots indicate 25 and 75% boundaries and 95% limits, with individual averages overlaid; dashed lines = means; solid lines = medians. See also Supplementary materials 7, 8.