TMHS和TMC1在耳蜗毛细胞声音感受中的作用

Hearing is important for us to acquire information from surroundings. As the only receptor cells of the auditory system, cochlear hair cells convert sound induced vibrations into neural signals (mechano-electrical transduction, MET). Sound has two main parameters, intensity and frequency. It is well known that amplitudes of MET currents represent the intensities, while frequencies are decoded by locations of hair cells in cochlea. Recently, studies including ours showed that in outer hair cells, the MET current amplitudes and channel conductances increase depending on the frequencies they are able to detect. More interestingly, the 2 major MET components, TMHS and TMC1, participate into this process. Here we propose that MET directly sharp tunes the frequency sensitivities of outer hair cells, which might be a role we did not appreciate before. In the future, we plan to study the underlying molecular and physiological mechanisms.

听觉是人类和外界交流获取信息的一个重要输入，耳蜗毛细胞作为听觉的唯一受体细胞起着将声音振动转换成神经电信号（mechao-electrical transduction，MET）的功能。作为声音的两个主要参数，音强的大小由MET电流大小呈现，而音频是由毛细胞在耳蜗上分布的不同位置决定。近几年包括我们工作在内的报道显示在不同频率区段的外毛细胞MET电流幅值和单通道电导和频率高低呈正相关的关系，进一步发现两个主要MET蛋白TMHS和TMC1参与这一过程。我们认为MET存在一个被忽视的功能，即增强毛细胞的频率调制（sharp tune）的功能，未来我们将深入研究其中的分子基础和调控机制。

听觉是人类获取外界信息的一个重要输入途径，耳蜗毛细胞作为听觉的唯一受体细胞起着将声音振动转换成神经电信号（mechao-electrical transduction，MET）的功能。作为声音的两个主要参数，音强的大小由MET电流大小呈现，而音频是由毛细胞在耳蜗上分布的不同位置决定。本项目研究了MET电流动力学的各个参数，验证这些参数和外毛细胞频率依赖性的关系，进一步通过对MET参与蛋白TMHS和TMC1的基因敲除小鼠的研究发现TMHS和TMC1在不同的时间和空间范围来参与MET的频率依赖性的调控。我们还发现TMHS和TMC1同时参与形成毛细胞的一个之前并未认识到的漏电导功能，而且该漏电导显著的调节了毛细胞的兴奋性和频率依赖性。