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

非肌球蛋白II （NMII）通过肌动蛋白丝的收缩调节细胞形状，肌动蛋白丝是细胞骨架的主要成分。在肌肉细胞中，已知NMII形成与肌动蛋白丝交替排列的复合体，并通过收缩这种“肌节”结构提供力量。另一方面，在上皮细胞中提供基于nmii的收缩力的机制尚不清楚。在本研究中，我们发现NMII定位于内耳感觉上皮的根尖细胞连接处，与根尖肌动蛋白环形成肉瘤结构，为细胞的根尖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.