Ionic currents in regenerating avian vestibular hair cells

By applying the conventional whole-cell patch-clamp technique in combination with the slice procedure, we have investigated the properties of avian semicircular canal hair cells in situ. Passive and active electrical properties of hair cells from control animals have been compared with those of regenerating hair cells following streptomycin treatment (that killed almost all hair cells). Regenerating type II hair cells showed patterns of responses qualitatively similar to those of normal hair cells. However, parameters reflecting the total number of ionic channels and the surface area of type II hair cells changed during recovery-suggesting that new hair cells came from smaller precursors which (with time) reacquired the same electrophysiological properties as normal hair cells. Finally, we have investigated the ionic properties of a small sample of type 1 hair cells. Ionic currents of regenerating type I hair cells did not show, at least in the temporal window considered (up to 10 weeks from the end of the streptomycin treatment), the typical ionic currents of normal type I hair cells, but expressed instead ionic currents resembling those of type II hair cells. The possibility that regenerating type I hair cells can transdifferentiate from type II hair cells is therefore suggested.