AI Article Synopsis
- Outer hair cells (OHCs) in the cochlea function like tiny motors, contributing energy to help us hear by generating forces related to changes in voltage.
- This phenomenon, called "electromotility," involves OHCs changing size, which has been observed using microscopy.
- The protein prestin is key to this process, and even though its exact structure isn't known yet, studies on similar proteins in other species hint at how it works and evolved in mammals.
Article Abstract
Outer hair cells (OHCs) of the mammalian cochlea behave like actuators: they feed energy into the cochlear partition and determine the overall mechanics of hearing. They do this by generating voltage-dependent axial forces. The resulting change in the cell length, observed by microscopy, has been termed "electromotility." The mechanism of force generation OHCs can be traced to a specific protein, prestin, a member of a superfamily SLC26 of transporters. This short review will identify some of the more recent findings on prestin. Although the tertiary structure of prestin has yet to be determined, results from the presence of its homologs in nonmammalian species suggest a possible conformation in mammalian OHCs, how it can act like a transport protein, and how it may have evolved.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6601450 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a033522 | DOI Listing |
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