seats in a three-row stadium, the bristles, called stereocilia, are arranged in tiers, with each lower seat connected to a higher seat by minute, threadlike bridges, or links. As the stereocilia are deflected, pore-like channels on the surface of the stereocilia open up, allowing potassium to rush in, and generating an electrical signal. Because the "tip link" the link that connects the tip of the shorter stereocilium to the side of the adjacent, taller stereocilium must be present for the channel to function, scientists believe that this structure may be responsible for opening and closing the channel gate. Researchers suggest that if they can learn the makeup of the tip link, they'll be that much closer to understanding how the gate mechanism operates.
"This research identifies protocadherin-15 to be one of the proteins associated with the tip link, thus finally answering a question that has been baffling researchers for years," says James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIDCD. "Thanks to the collaborative effort among these researchers, we are now at the closest point we have ever been to understanding the mechanism by which the ear converts mechanical energy or energy of motion into a form of energy that the brain can recognize as sound."
NIDCD's Zubair M. Ahmed, Ph.D., and Thomas B. Friedman, Ph.D., together with the University of Sussex's Richard Goodyear, Ph.D., and Guy P. Richardson, Ph.D., and others used several lines of evidence to identify a protein that Drs. Goodyear and Richardson had earlier found to comprise tip links in the inner ears of young chicks. The protein is referred to as the "tip-link antigen" (TLA) because it induces the production of special antibodies, which bind to the protein at the stereocilia tips.
Using mass spectrometry, a laboratory technique that breaks down a substance into its individual components, the researchers analyzed the makeup of the TLA and found two peptid
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Contact: Jennifer Wenger
jwenger@mail.nih.gov
301-496-7243
NIH/National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
27-Jun-2006
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