Abstract
Hair cells are specialized sensors located in the inner ear that enable the transduction of sound, motion, and gravity into neuronal impulses. In birds some hair cells contain an iron-rich organelle, the cuticulosome, that has been implicated in the magnetic sense. Here, we exploit histological, transcriptomic and tomographic methods to investigate the development of cuticulosomes, as well as the molecular and subcellular architecture of cuticulosome positive hair cells. We show that this organelle forms rapidly after hatching in a process that involves vesicle fusion and nucleation of ferritin nanoparticles. We further report that transcripts involved in endocytosis, extracellular exosomes, and metal ion binding are differentially expressed in cuticulosome positive hair cells. These data suggest that the cuticulosome and the associated molecular machinery regulate the concentration of iron within the labyrinth of the inner ear, which might indirectly tune a magnetic sensor that relies on electromagnetic induction.
Data availability
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Austrian Science Fund (Y726)
- Thomas R Burkard
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (336724)
- David A Keays
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All experiments were conducted in accordance with an existing ethical framework GZ: 214635/2015/20 granted by the City of Vienna (Magistratsabteilung 58).
Reviewing Editor
- Jeremy Nathans, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States
Publication history
- Received: June 27, 2017
- Accepted: November 11, 2017
- Accepted Manuscript published: November 15, 2017 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: November 22, 2017 (version 2)
- Version of Record updated: November 23, 2017 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2017, Nimpf et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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