Development and localization of reverse-polarity mechanotransducer channels in cochlear hair cells

Cochlear hair cells normally detect positive deflections of their hair bundles, rotating toward their tallest edge, which opens mechanotransducer (MT) channels by increased tension in interciliary tip links. After tip-link destruction, the normal polarity of MT current is replaced by a mechanically sensitive current evoked by negative bundle deflections. The "reverse-polarity" current was investigated in cochlear hair cells after tip-link destruction with BAPTA, in transmembrane channel-like protein isoforms 1/2 (Tmc1:Tmc2) double mutants, and during perinatal development. This current is a natural adjunct of embryonic development, present in all wild-type hair cells but declining after birth with emergence of the normal-polarity current. Evidence indicated the reverse-polarity current seen developmentally was a manifestation of the same ion channel as that evident under abnormal conditions in Tmc mutants or after tip-link destruction. In all cases, sinusoidal fluid-jet stimuli from different orientations suggested the underlying channels were opened not directly by deflections of the hair bundle but by deformation of the apical plasma membrane. Cell-attached patch recording on the hair-cell apical membrane revealed, after BAPTA treatment or during perinatal development, 90-pS stretch-activated cation channels that could be blocked by Ca(2+) and by FM1-43. High-speed Ca(2+) imaging, using swept-field confocal microscopy, showed the Ca(2+) influx through the reverse-polarity channels was not localized to the hair bundle, but distributed across the apical plasma membrane. These reverse-polarity channels, which we propose to be renamed "unconventional" mechanically sensitive channels, have some properties similar to the normal MT channels, but the relationship between the two types is still not well defined.