Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kazmierczak, Piotr
• Müller, Ulrich

Titel

Sensing sound: molecules that orchestrate mechanotransduction by hair cells

Ist Teil von

• Trends in neurosciences (Regular ed.), 2012-04, Vol.35 (4), p.220-229

Ort / Verlag

Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Animals use acoustic signals to communicate and to obtain information about their environment. The processing of acoustic signals is initiated at auditory sense organs, where mechanosensory hair cells convert sound-induced vibrations into electrical signals. Although the biophysical principles underlying the mechanotransduction process in hair cells have been characterized in much detail over the past 30 years, the molecular building-blocks of the mechanotransduction machinery have proved to be difficult to determine. We review here recent studies that have both identified some of these molecules and established the mechanisms by which they regulate the activity of the still-elusive mechanotransduction channel.