The sensory epithelium of the avian inner ear retains into adulthood progenitor cells for inner-ear hair cells and other cell types in the epithelium. Hair cells are produced normally on an ongoing basis in the vestibular sensory epithelium, and hair-cell production is increased after insult in both auditory and vestibular sensory epithelia. The details of postnatal hair-cell production are not...

Despite increased interest in inner ear hair cell regeneration, it is still unclear what exact mechanisms underlie hair cell regeneration in mammals because of our limited understanding of hair cell development and the lack of specific hair cell markers. In this report, we studied hair cell development using immunohistochemistry on sections prepared from embryonic day (E) 13 to postnatal day 7 ...

Organ regeneration is becoming a promising choice for many patients; however, many details about the mechanisms underlying organ regeneration remain unknown. As regenerative organs, hair follicles offer a good model to study the mechanisms associated with regenerative medicine. The relevant studies have mainly focused on donor cells, and there are no systematic studies involving the effect of h...

OBJECTIVE Dermal papilla and hair epithelial stem cells regulate hair formation and the growth cycle. Damage to or loss of these cells can cause hair loss. Although several studies claim to reconstitute hairs using rodent cells in an animal model, additional research is needed to develop a stable human hair follicle reconstitution protocol. In this study, we have evaluated hair induction by inj...

Atonal homolog1 (Atoh1) is a bHLH transcription factor essential for inner ear hair cell differentiation. Targeted expression of Atoh1 at various stages in development can result in hair cell differentiation in the ear. However, the level and duration of Atoh1 expression required for proper hair cell differentiation and maintenance remain unknown. We generated an Atoh1 conditional knockout (CKO...

Surface glycoconjugates of hair cells and supporting cells in the vestibular endorgans of the bullfrog were identified using biotinylated lectins with different carbohydrate specificities. Lectin binding in hair cells was consistent with the presence of glucose and mannose (CON A), galactose (RCA-I), N-acetylglucosamine (WGA), N-acetylgalactosamine (VVA), but not fucose (UEA-I) residues. Hair c...

Sound perception requires functional hair cell mechanotransduction (MET) machinery, including the MET channels and tip-link proteins. Prior work showed that uptake of ototoxic aminoglycosides (AG) into hair cells requires functional MET channels. In this study, we examined whether tip-link proteins, including Cadherin 23 (Cdh23), regulate AG entry into hair cells. Using time-lapse microscopy on...

In inner ear hair cells, activation of mechanotransduction channels is followed by extremely rapid deactivation that depends on the influx of Ca(2+) through these channels. Although the molecular mechanisms of this "fast" adaptation are largely unknown, the predominant models assume Ca(2+) sensitivity as an intrinsic property of yet unidentified mechanotransduction channels. Here, we examined m...

The present investigation explored the in vitro culture, isolation and characterization of hair follicle cell differentiation from umbilical cord blood mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Flow cytometry was used to obtain MSCs from the isolation and purification of human umbilical cord blood MSCs. Culture suspension of hair follicle organ was centrifuged and the supernatant used in the culture mediu...