Rearrangements between differentiating hair cells coordinate planar polarity and the establishment of mirror symmetry in lateral-line neuromasts.

ABSTRACT: In addition to their ubiquitous apical-basal polarity, many epithelia are also polarized along an orthogonal axis, a phenomenon termed planar cell polarity (PCP). In the mammalian inner ear and the zebrafish lateral line, PCP is revealed through the orientation of mechanosensitive hair cells relative to each other and to the body axes. In each neuromast, the receptor organ of the lateral line, hair bundles are arranged in a mirror-symmetrical fashion. Here we show that the establishment of mirror symmetry is preceded by rotational rearrangements between hair-cell pairs, a behavior consistently associated with the division of hair-cell precursors. Time-lapse imaging of trilobite mutants, which lack the core PCP constituent Vang-like protein 2 (Vangl2), shows that their misoriented hair cell

SUBMITTER: Mirkovic I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3507212 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature