A Drosophila mechanosensory transduction channel

Mechanosensory transduction underlies a wide range of senses, including pro prioception, touch, balance, and hearing. The pivotal element of these sens es is a mechanically gated ion channel that transduces sound, pressure, or movement into changes in excitability of specialized sensory cells. Despite the prevalence of mechanosensory systems, Little is known about the molecu lar nature of the transduction channels. To identify such a channel, we ana lyzed Drosophila melanogaster mechanoreceptive mutants for defects in mecha nosensory physiology, Loss-of-function mutations in the no mechanoreceptor potential C (nompC) gene virtually abolished mechanosensory signaling. nomp C encodes a new ion channel that is essential for mechanosensory transducti on. As expected for a transduction channel, D, melanogaster NOMPC and a Cae norhabditis elegans homolog were selectively expressed in mechanosensory or gans.