The structural homeostasis of the cochlear hair cell membrane is critical for all aspects of sensory transduction, but the regulation of its maintenance is not well understood. In this report, we analyzed the cochlear hair cells of mice with specific deletion of myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) in inner hair cells. MLCK-deficient mice showed impaired hearing, with a 5- to 14-dB rise in the audi...

Cellular hair growth therapy is an emerging approach to alopecia. Recently, Tsuboi et al. (J Am Acad Dermatol. 2020;83,109–116.) have observed hair-growth stimulation by dermal-sheath-cup cells in patients with androgenic Hair follicle-associated pluripotent (HAP) stem cells, originate the bulge area and express nestin, been shown differentiate multiple cell types including keratinocytes, neuro...

Hair cell-selective antibodies were used in combination with the nucleotide bromode-oxyuridine (BrdU) to examine the temporal, spatial, and morphologic progression of auditory hair cell regeneration in chicks after a single gentamicin injection. New hair cells are first identifiable with an antibody to class III beta (beta) tubulin (TuJ1) by 14 hours after BrdU incorporation, but progenitor cel...

Sensory hair cells in the cochleae of birds are regenerated after the death of preexisting hair cells caused by acoustic over-stimulation or administration of ototoxic drugs. Regeneration involves renewed proliferation of cells in an epithelium that is otherwise mitotically quiescent. To determine the identity of the first cells that proliferate in response to the death of hair cells and to mea...

The specification of the hair and non-hair cells in the Arabidopsis root epidermis provides a useful model for the study of cell fate determination in plants. A network of putative transcriptional regulators, including the related bHLH proteins GLABRA3 (GL3) and ENHANCER OF GLABRA3 (EGL3), is known to influence the patterning of these cell types. Here, we analyze the expression and regulation o...

Evolution has transformed a simple ear with few vestibular maculae into a complex three-dimensional structure consisting of nine distinct endorgans. It is debatable whether the sensory epithelia underwent progressive segregation or emerged from distinct sensory patches. To address these uncertainties we examined the morphological and functional phenotype of trans-differentiated rat hair cells t...

The remarkable hearing capacities of mammals arise from various evolutionary innovations. These include the cochlear outer hair cells and their singular feature, somatic electromotility, i.e., the ability of their cylindrical cell body to shorten and elongate upon cell depolarization and hyperpolarization, respectively. To shed light on the processes underlying the emergence of electromotility,...

Hair cells detect and process sound and movement information, and transmit this with remarkable precision and efficiency to afferent neurons via specialized ribbon synapses. The zebrafish is emerging as a powerful model for genetic analysis of hair cell development and function both in vitro and in vivo. However, the full exploitation of the zebrafish is currently limited by the difficulty in o...

INTRODUCTION Recent work has focused on the hair follicle as the main repository of multipotent stem cells in skin, which is a neat model to study the mechanisms regulating the proliferation, migration and final fate of adult stem cells. This review examines the available literature for its location, molecular markers and multipotency. METHODS Peer-reviewed journals and monographs on the subj...