Outer hair cells (OHCs) of the mammalian cochlea actively change their cell length in response to changes in membrane potential. This electromotility, thought to be the basis of cochlear amplification, is mediated by a voltage-sensitive motor molecule recently identified as the membrane protein prestin. Here, we show that voltage sensitivity is conferred to prestin by the intracellular anions chloride and bicarbonate. Removal of these anions abolished fast voltage-dependent motility, as well as the characteristic nonlinear charge movement ("gating currents") driving the underlying structural rearrangements of the protein. The results support a model in which anions act as extrinsic voltage sensors, which bind to the prestin molecule and thus trigger the conformational changes required for motility of OHCs.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 April 2026.
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#5,219,447
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#40,626
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#6,764
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Outputs of similar age from Science
#119
of 280 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,598,501 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 75th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 79,901 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 64.5. This one is in the 45th percentile – i.e., 45% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 280 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its contemporaries.
