Fig. 5

Aberrant stereocilia and undistinguishable kinocilia in IHCs and OHCs on SEM. a–c IHCs and OHCs at postnatal day 7 showing the uniform stereocilia heights and diameters within each row of the hair bundle. Kinocilium was pseudo colored in the OHC (b). In TMEM30A deletion HCs, the hair bundles were disorderly arranged and lodging to different directions (d). More than three rows of stereocilia were seen on OHCs, without recognizable kinocilium (e). From the top view of the IHCs, the cuticular plates were round and irregular in KO, instead of the long uniform alignment shown in WT (a, c). Stereocilia of IHCs lost their regular lodging pattern (f, g) with some located on the OHC side, some on the SGN side, and some scattered distributed without any order (g). Irregular arrangement of hair bundles was presented with tapered end. Samples were taken from apical turn of the cochlea