Figure 1: Sensory hair and supporting cells are related in the saccular and utricular macula. | Nature Communications

Figure 1: Sensory hair and supporting cells are related in the saccular and utricular macula.

From: Identification of mouse cochlear progenitors that develop hair and supporting cells in the organ of Corti

Figure 1

(a) Schematic of expected results of inner ear sensory organs obtained in this study. (1) In the case where the inner ear is generated from a single bipotential progenitor, the otic ectodermal cells show a single colour (on the right). (2) In the case where putative pluripotent/bipotent progenitors proliferate in the otic ectoderm and mix during placodal thickening, the otic placode would always show the same combination of colours (on the left). (3) As the neural crest cells are known to migrate into the otic placode to contribute to inner ear development, in the case each otic placode is derived from several ectodermal and neural crest progenitors that are separately generated, the otic placode would be similar to the placode indicated in (2). These scenarios also apply to the sensory organs in the inner ear to determine whether they are derived from multiple putative bipotent progenitors that proliferate in the sensory primordium and mix during differentiation to give rise to sensory hair cells and underlying supporting cells. For the snail-shaped cochlea, see Fig. 2a. (b) Merged image showing hair cells (HCs) in macula labelled with anti-Myo7a (white) and nuclear staining with Hoechst. (c) Composite image from a section adjacent to (b) with relatively balanced chimerism showing single-colour clusters consisting of supporting cells (SCs) and HCs in the saccular macular epithelium. Arrows point to uncoloured cells. (d) Composite image showing E18.5 saccular macular epithelium (injected with decreased number of RFP- and GFP-mESCs) with two green two-cell clusters consisting of one HC and one SC. (e) Upper panel: composite image showing E17.5 chimeric utricular macular epithelium showing single-colour clusters (red, green and blue) consisting of SCs and their associated HCs. Lower panel: an adjacent section of the upper panel stained with anti-Myo7a for HCs and Hoechst. (f,g) Composite images showing utricular macula (injected with decreased number of RFP-, CFP- and GFP-mESCs) with two-cell clusters consisting of one HC and one associated SC. Also see Supplementary Figs 1 and 2. Scale bar: 20 μm.

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