Science exchange logo white
  • Solutions
      Buyers

      We are making R&D services readily available to every organization that seeks to make scientific impact. Learn More

      Providers

      We are changing the way providers access and engage customers to streamline the sale and delivery of R&D services. Learn More

      Industries Agriscience Animal Health Basic Research Biopharmaceutical Chemicals Consumer Health Food Science Medical Devices
      Reproducibility

      We believe that good experiments can and should be independently replicated and validated. Learn More

  • Resources
    Innovation Blog
    Customer Stories
    Events
    Industry Trends
    News
    Product Updates
    Help Center
  • About
    About
    Our Story
    Leadership
    Partners
    Join the Team
  • Contact
  • Log In Sign Up
  • Get a Demo
  • Reinforcement of cell junctions correlates with the absence of hair cell regeneration in mammals and its occurrence in birds.

    J Comp Neurol. 511(3):396-414. doi: 10.1002/cne.21849. November 20, 2008. View on PubMed.
  • Authors

    Joseph Burns, Christophel JJ, Collado MS, Magnus C, Carfrae M, and Corwin JT
  • Abstract

    Debilitating hearing and balance deficits often arise through damage to the inner ear's hair cells. For humans and other mammals, such deficits are permanent, but nonmammalian vertebrates can quickly recover hearing and balance through their innate capacity to regenerate hair cells. The biological basis for this difference has remained unknown, but recent investigations in wounded balance epithelia have shown that proliferation follows cellular spreading at sites of injury. As mammalian ears mature during the first weeks after birth, the capacity for spreading and proliferation declines sharply. In seeking the basis for those declines, we investigated the circumferential bands of F-actin that bracket the apical junctions between supporting cells in the gravity-sensitive utricle. We found that those bands grow much thicker as mice and humans mature postnatally, whereas their counterparts in chickens remain thin from hatching through adulthood. When we cultured utricular epithelia from chickens, we found that cellular spreading and proliferation both continued at high levels, even in the epithelia from adults. In contrast, the substantial reinforcement of the circumferential F-actin bands in mammals coincides with the steep declines in cell spreading and production established in earlier experiments. We propose that the presence of thin F-actin bands at the junctions between avian supporting cells may contribute to the lifelong persistence of their capacity for shape change, cell proliferation, and hair cell replacement and that the postnatal reinforcement of the F-actin bands in maturing humans and other mammals may have an important role in limiting hair cell regeneration.

Science exchange logo white

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

Solutions

  • Buyers
  • Providers
  • Reproducibility

Industries

  • Agriscience
  • Animal Health
  • Basic Research
  • Biopharmaceutical
  • Chemicals
  • Consumer Health
  • Food Science
  • Medical Devices

Resources

  • Innovation Blog
  • Customer Stories
  • Events
  • Industry Trends
  • News
  • Product Updates

About

  • Our Story
  • Leadership
  • Partners
  • Join the Team

Support

  • Contact Us
  • Help Center
  • Trust
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 Science Exchange, Inc. All rights reserved.