Abstract
The vertebrate inner ear contains vestibular receptors that contain dense crystals of calcium carbonate, the otoconia. The production and maintenance of otoconia is a delicate process, the perturbation of which can lead to severe vestibular dysfunction in humans. The details of these processes are not well understood. Here, we report the discovery of a new otoconial mass in the lagena of adult pigeons that was present in more than 70% of birds. Based on histological, tomographic and elemental analyses, we conclude that the structure likely represents an ectopically-formed otoconial assembly. Given its frequent natural occurrence, we suggest that the pigeon lagena is a valuable model system for investigating misregulated otoconial formation.
- Received March 26, 2018.
- Accepted June 20, 2018.
- © 2018. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
Keywords
Article Navigation
Related articles
Cited by...
More in this TOC section
Similar articles
Other journals from The Company of Biologists
Cover article – A critical period of susceptibility to sound in the sensory cells of cephalopod hatchlings
Sounds produced by human activities are increasingly contributing to the general noise budget of the oceans, where they can cause physical, physiological and behavioural effects in marine fauna. Now, Michel André and colleagues reveal that cephalopods such as this Sepia officinalis hatchling display morphological and ultrastructural evidence of massive acoustic trauma after low-frequency sound exposure.
Featured article – Viability of dietary substitution of live microalgae with dry Ulva rigida in broodstock conditioning of the Pacific oyster
Domitília Matias and colleagues show how the use of an alternative diet with 25% microalgae replacement by dry macroalgae is beneficial during broodstock conditioning and allows the operation costs of bivalve hatcheries to be minimized.
Find out more about the story behind the study in an interview with first author Ana Rato.
First Person interviews
Have you seen our interviews with the early-career first authors of our papers? Recently, we caught up with first authors Timothy Jakobi, Alexander Knorr & Céline Gravot, Tomoko Matsuzaki, Lauren Nadler and Qiang Yang.
Why should you publish your next paper in BiO?
Biology Open has strong credentials and publishing with us is easy and fast. BiO aims to provide rapid publication for scientifically sound observations and valid conclusions in developmental, cell, experimental and translational biology. Submit your paper here; you’ll be in good company.
Recent cell science research highlights in BiO – The major contributor to ribosome heterogeneity is variation in rRNA modification by methylation and pseudouridylation. Michael Hebert and colleagues provide additional evidence for the regulation of snoRNP activity by regRNPs, which alters levels of methylation.
Transfer to Biology Open
If your submission to one of our other journals, Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology or Disease Models & Mechanism, is unsuccessful, did you know you can transfer your paper and any reviews directly to Biology Open? The majority of papers transferred with reviews are accepted for publication. Find out how here.
preLights – Plot all your data with PlotsOfData
The scientific community are becoming increasingly aware of the need for better ways than bar charts to compile and plot their results. Following on from our previous preLight on raincloud plots, Guillaume Jacquemet outlines the plot creation tools currently available to researchers and highlights a recent preprint from Marten Postma and Joachim Goedhart describing a new web app for generating dot plots, box plots or violin plots.