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Updated: Jul 3, 2026

Investigating Outer Hair Cell Motility with a Combination of External Alternating Electrical Field Stimulation and High-speed Image Analysis
Published on: July 18, 2011
Anion control of voltage sensing by the motor protein prestin in outer hair cells
Volodymyr Rybalchenko1, Joseph Santos-Sacchi
1Department of Surgery (Otolaryngology),Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA.
Abstract:
The outer hair cell from Corti's organ possesses voltage-dependent intramembranous molecular motors evolved from the SLC26 anion transporter family. The motor, identified as prestin (SLC26a5), is responsible for electromotility of outer hair cells and mammalian cochlear amplification, a process that heightens our auditory responsiveness. Here, we describe experiments designed to evaluate the effects of anions on the motor's voltage-sensor charge movement, focusing on prestin's voltage-dependent Boltzmann characteristics. We find that the nature of the anion, including species, valence, and structure, regulates characteristics of the charge movement, signifying that anions play a more complicated role than simple voltage sensing in cochlear amplification.
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