In hair cells, blebs typically appear in response to various insults, such as acoustic trauma, ischemia, application of extracellular ATP, and application of ototoxic drugs, as well as during development in the bustling mouse. Although blebs can apear in the subnuclear region of the cell, they typically form on the apical surface. The images below show a schematic drawing of a typical hair cell on the left, and a similar hair cell with a bleb on the right. Blebs have been seen in a wide variety of hair cell organs in a wide variety of species. This poster discusses in particular blebs in the cochlea of the alligator lizard.
Blebs are visible as spheres next to most inner hair cells near the bottom of the image.
Taken together, these results imply that hair cells can recover normal function after blebbing, but do not necessarily do so. Blebbing is also commonly seen in in vitro studies of hair cells. However, in such studies blebbing is commonly assumed to be synonymous with cell death. In this study we examined the effect of bathing media on the ability of hair cells to recover from blebbing. Blebbing was typically induced by the surical isolation procedure.