2025 Volume 65 Issue 1 Pages 9-13
The mammalian inner ear achieves high sensitivity to sound by mechanically amplifying sound vibrations by outer hair cells (OHCs). This “cochlear amplification” relies on the activity of the membrane-based voltage-driven motor protein “prestin”, which senses the changes in the membrane potential and dynamically expands and contracts the OHCs (so-called “electromotility”). Despite some structural studies, how prestin drives electromotility remains elusive. By employing the voltage-clamp fluorometry technique, I visualised the structural changes of prestin, suggesting that the conformational changes in prestin that drive electromotility are cognate to the ion transport cycle of the SLC26 transporter family to which prestin belongs.
