Abstract
Auditory sensory hair cells depend on stereocilia with precisely regulated lengths to detect sound. Since stereocilia are primarily composed of crosslinked, parallel actin filaments, regulated actin dynamics are essential for controlling stereocilia length. Here we assessed stereocilia actin turnover by monitoring incorporation of inducibly expressed β-actin-GFP in adult mouse hair cells in vivo and by directly measuring β-actin-GFP turnover in explants. Stereocilia actin incorporation is remarkably slow and restricted to filament barbed ends in a small tip compartment, with minimal accumulation in the rest of the actin core. Shorter rows of stereocilia, which have mechanically gated ion channels, show more variable actin turnover than the tallest stereocilia, which lack channels. Finally, the proteins ADF and AIP1, which both mediate actin filament severing, contribute to stereocilia length maintenance. Altogether, the data support a model whereby stereocilia actin cores are largely static, with dynamic regulation at the tips to maintain a critical length.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 6855 |
| Journal | Nature communications |
| Volume | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 21 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Mark Canner, Thomas Friedman, Melanie Barzik, Meghan Drummond and Inna Belyantseva for comments on our manuscript and Monica Justice for providing Wdr1rd mice. This work was supported by NIH grants R01AR049899 to JME, R01EY016108 to SI and R03DC12354 to BJP. D.P.C. is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Parts of this work were carried out in the Characterization Facility, University of Minnesota, a member of the NSF-funded Materials Research Facilities Network (www.mrfn.org) via the MRSEC program.
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