Morphological regulation of the developmental inner ear hair cells by non-muscle myosin II

已知非肌肉肌球蛋白II（NMII）通过肌动蛋白丝（细胞骨架的主要组分）的收缩来调节细胞形状。在肌肉细胞中，已知匪II形成与肌动蛋白丝交替排列的复合物，并通过收缩该“肌节”结构来提供力。另一方面，在上皮细胞中提供基于匪II的收缩力的机制仍然不清楚。在这项研究中，我们证明了匪II定位于内耳感觉上皮细胞的顶端细胞连接处，与顶端肌动蛋白环形成肌节结构，为细胞的顶端表面提供弦状收缩力。

Non-muscle myosin II (NMII) is known to regulate cell shapes through the contraction of actin filaments, major components of the cytoskeleton. In muscle cells, NMII is known to form a complex which alined alternately with actin filaments and to provide force by contracting this "sarcomere" structure. On the other hand, the mechanism for providing NMII-based contraction force in the epithelial cells is still unclear. In this research, we demonstrated that NMII localized to the apical cell junction in the inner ear sensory epithelia, forming sarcomeric structures with the apical actin ring to provide string-like contraction force to the apical surface of the cells.