Wnt7b acts in concert with Wnt5a to regulate tissue elongation and planar cell polarity via noncanonical Wnt signaling.

Intercellular signaling mediated by evolutionarily conserved planar cell polarity (PCP) proteins aligns cell polarity along the tissue plane and drives polarized cell behaviors during tissue morphogenesis. Accumulating evidence indicates that the vertebrate PCP pathway is regulated by noncanonical, β-catenin-independent Wnt signaling; however, the signaling components and mechanisms are incompletely understood. In the mouse hearing organ, both PCP and noncanonical Wnt (ncWnt) signaling are required in the developing auditory sensory epithelium to control cochlear duct elongation and planar polarity of resident sensory hair cells (HCs), including the shape and orientation of the stereociliary hair bundle essential for sound detection.

Rac1 and Nectin3 are essential for PCP-directed axon guidance in the peripheral auditory system.

Our sense of hearing is critically dependent on the spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) that connect the sound receptors in the organ of Corti (OC) to the cochlear nuclei of the hindbrain. Type I SGNs innervate inner hair cells (IHCs) to transmit sound signals, while type II SGNs (SGNIIs) innervate outer hair cells (OHCs) to detect moderate-to-intense sound. During development, SGNII afferents make a characteristic 90-degree turn toward the base of the cochlea and innervate multiple OHCs.

Increasing Accessibility to Neuroscience through Translation: Going beyond the English Language.

Declaring the 1990s as put the field of neuroscience at the forefront of public attention, with the nervous system becoming a subject of increasing interest in popular media. Although this has generally brought large swaths of the public closer to neuroscience, most current research is published and disseminated in a single language: English. This is unsurprising as English is indeed the lingua franca in scientific circles, but people around the world communicate in many other languages.

Par3 is essential for the establishment of planar cell polarity of inner ear hair cells.

In the inner ear sensory epithelia, stereociliary hair bundles atop sensory hair cells are mechanosensory apparatus with planar polarized structure and orientation. This is established during development by the concerted action of tissue-level, intercellular planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling and a hair cell-intrinsic, microtubule-mediated machinery. However, how various polarity signals are integrated during hair bundle morphogenesis is poorly understood.