House Ear Institute

2 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Neuroscience

Investigating Outer Hair Cell Motility with a Combination of External Alternating Electrical Field Stimulation and High-speed Image Analysis

Rei Kitani¹, Federico Kalinec¹

¹Division of Cell Biology and Genetics, House Ear Institute

A reliable method to investigate outer hair cell (OHC) motile responses, including electromotility, slow motility and bending, is described. OHC motility is elicited by stimulation with an external alternating electrical field, and the method takes advantage of high-speed image recording, LED-based illumination, and last generation image analysis software.

Biology

Working with Auditory HEI-OC1 Cells

Gilda M. Kalinec¹, Channy Park¹, Pru Thein¹, Federico Kalinec¹

¹Head and Neck Surgery, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles

House Ear Institute-Organ of Corti 1 (HEI-OC1) is one of the few mouse auditory cell lines currently available for research purposes. This protocol describes how to work with HEI-OC1 cells to investigate the cytotoxic effects of pharmacological drugs as well as functional properties of inner ear proteins.