Regulation of polarized extension and planar cell polarity in the cochlea by the vertebrate PCP pathway

The mammalian auditory sensory organ, the organ of Corti, consists of sensory hair cells with uniformly oriented stereocilia on the apical surfaces and has a distinct planar cell polarity (PCP) parallel to the sensory epithelium. It is not certain how this polarity is achieved during differentiation. Here we show that the organ of Corti is formed from a thicker and shorter postmitotic primordium through unidirectional extension, characteristic of cellular intercalation known as convergent extension. Mutations in the PCP pathway interfere with this extension, resulting a shorter and wider cochlea as well as misorientation of stereocilia. Furthermore, parallel to the homologous pathway in Drosophila melanogaster, a mammalian PCP component Dishevelled2 shows PCP-dependent polarized subcellular localization across the organ of Corti. Taken together, these data suggest that there is a conserved molecular mechanism for PCP pathways in invertebrates and vertebrates and indicate that the mammalian PCP pathway might directly couple cellular intercalations to PCP establishment in the cochlea.