title: Mechanical and electromechanical properties of the stereovillar bundles of isolated and cultured hair cells of the chicken.
abstract: Isolated single chicken hair cells and pieces of epithelium without the tectorial membrane, either freshly isolated or in tissue culture, were studied using water-jet stimulation of their stereovillar bundles and current injection. Responses were measured under enhanced video-microscopic observation or while using a differential photodiode technique sensitive down into the nanometer range. When stimulated with a water jet at low displacement amplitudes up to about 200 nm, the stereovillar bundle displacement was asymmetrical, indicating a lower stiffness in the excitatory direction, but the reverse was true at higher displacement amplitudes. Undamaged bundles showed no mechanical resonances below 1 kHz. In damaged bundles, however, such resonances were prominent and accompanied by splaying of the stereovilli. Hair cells in the epithelium showed small bundle movements (0.6 nm/mV) whose polarity depended on the polarity of the injected current. These movements probably resulted from activation of the bundle's adaptation motors.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Zoologie der Technischen Universität München, Garching, FRG.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brix
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Manley
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002645:Chickens; D046508:Culture Techniques; D004847:Epithelial Cells; D004848:Epithelium / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D006198:Hair Cells, Auditory / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology; D013314:Stress, Mechanical