The peripheral auditory system communicates with the central nervous system through synapses between the sensory cells and the spiral ganglion neurons. This single synapse carries information regarding frequency, intensity and timing that is used by the CNS for to extract all information provided by the auditory modality. The synapse is specialized to operate across a broad frequency range, to respond to graded stimuli in a linear manner. The synapse maintains high rates of release and does not fatigue and is sensitive to receptor potentials often below 1 mV. The goal of this proposal is to delineate the mechanisms underlying these unusual synaptic properties. Both pre and postsynaptic mechanisms will be investigated.
Specific Aim 1 addresses presynaptic issues and has three subaims;to identify the Ca2+ dependent components of vesicle release and trafficking, to determine the kinetics of release while identifying the rate limiting steps of trafficking and release, and to elucidate tonotopic differences in release properties, characterizing Ca2+ homeostatic mechanisms that regulate release and identifying phosphorylation dependent regulation of release and trafficking.
Specific Aim 2 investigates postsynaptic processing with three goals;first to determine if there are tonotopic variations in afferent electrical properties that might serve to enhance frequency selectivity such as the kinetics and magnitude of voltage-dependent processes, second to characterize synaptic transmission at different locations to identify differences in receptor types and numbers and third to investigate mechanisms associated with multivesicular release. Structural, immunocytochemical, optical, electrophysiological and theoretical tools including several new technologies are included to better enable us to investigate these issues. Given that any deficits in synaptic transmission at the hair cell afferent fiber synapse results in auditory deficits, identifying novel mechanisms may provide unique avenues for intervention.

Public Health Relevance

All of the signal processing that happens at the auditory periphery is communicated to the central nervous system through the hair cell afferent fiber synapse. Any action that results in a loss of fidelity of this synapse leads to hearing loss and deafness. The requirements of this synapse are quite demanding and result in several unique specializations including: a graded and linear response to stimulus, an amazing lack of fatigue in the face of continual and often high release rates and postsynaptic firing rates, and the ability to phase-lock across several orders of magnitude of frequencies. Mechanisms underlying these specialized properties are unknown but should offer sites for intervention and prevention of noise induced and even ototoxic induced hearing loss. The primary goal of this work is to identify and characterize these mechanisms.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC009913-03
Application #
7992365
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-IFCN-F (03))
Program Officer
Cyr, Janet
Project Start
2008-12-08
Project End
2013-11-30
Budget Start
2010-12-01
Budget End
2011-11-30
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2011
Total Cost
$328,938
Indirect Cost
Name
Stanford University
Department
Otolaryngology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
009214214
City
Stanford
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94305
Becker, Lars; Schnee, Michael E; Niwa, Mamiko et al. (2018) The presynaptic ribbon maintains vesicle populations at the hair cell afferent fiber synapse. Elife 7:
Meese, Sandra; Cepeda, Andreia P; Gahlen, Felix et al. (2017) Activity-Dependent Phosphorylation by CaMKII? Alters the Ca2+ Affinity of the Multi-C2-Domain Protein Otoferlin. Front Synaptic Neurosci 9:13
Castellano-Muñoz, Manuel; Schnee, Michael E; Ricci, Anthony J (2016) Calcium-induced calcium release supports recruitment of synaptic vesicles in auditory hair cells. J Neurophysiol 115:226-39
Sundaresan, Srividya; Kong, Jee-Hyun; Fang, Qing et al. (2016) Thyroid hormone is required for pruning, functioning and long-term maintenance of afferent inner hair cell synapses. Eur J Neurosci 43:148-61
Castellano-Muñoz, Manuel; Ricci, Anthony J (2014) Role of intracellular calcium stores in hair-cell ribbon synapse. Front Cell Neurosci 8:162
Ricci, Anthony J; Bai, Jun-Ping; Song, Lei et al. (2013) Patch-clamp recordings from lateral line neuromast hair cells of the living zebrafish. J Neurosci 33:3131-4
Schnee, M E; Castellano-Muñoz, M; Ricci, A J (2013) Response properties from turtle auditory hair cell afferent fibers suggest spike generation is driven by synchronized release both between and within synapses. J Neurophysiol 110:204-20
Castellano-Muñoz, Manuel; Peng, Anthony Wei; Salles, Felipe T et al. (2012) Swept field laser confocal microscopy for enhanced spatial and temporal resolution in live-cell imaging. Microsc Microanal 18:753-60
Schnee, Michael E; Castellano-Muñoz, Manuel; Kong, Jee-Hyun et al. (2011) Tracking vesicle fusion from hair cell ribbon synapses using a high frequency, dual sine wave stimulus paradigm. Commun Integr Biol 4:785-7
Schnee, Michael E; Santos-Sacchi, Joseph; Castellano-Munoz, Manuel et al. (2011) Calcium-dependent synaptic vesicle trafficking underlies indefatigable release at the hair cell afferent fiber synapse. Neuron 70:326-38

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