Active energy harvesting and work transduction by hair-cell bundles in bullfrog's inner ear

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Thipmaungprom, Yanathip, Saliekh, Laila, Alonso, Rodrigo, Roldán, Édgar, Berger, Florian, Belousov, Roman
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Thipmaungprom, Yanathip
Saliekh, Laila
Alonso, Rodrigo
Roldán, Édgar
Berger, Florian
Belousov, Roman
author_facet Thipmaungprom, Yanathip
Saliekh, Laila
Alonso, Rodrigo
Roldán, Édgar
Berger, Florian
Belousov, Roman
contents Hair cells actively drive oscillations of their mechanosensitive organelles--the hair bundles that enable hearing and balance sensing in vertebrates. Why and how some hair cells expend energy by sustaining this oscillatory motion in order to fulfill their function as signal sensors and others--as amplifiers, remains unknown. We develop a stochastic thermodynamic theory to describe energy flows in a periodically-driven hair bundle. Our analysis of thermodynamic fluxes associated with hair bundles' motion and external sinusoidal stimulus reveals that these organelles operate as thermodynamic work-to-work machines under different operational modes. One operational mode transduces the signal's power into the cell, whereas another allows the external stimulus to harvest the energy supplied by the cell. These two regimes might represent thermodynamic signatures of signal sensing and amplification respectively. In addition to work transduction and energy harvesting, our model also substantiates the capability of hair-cell bundles to operate as heaters and, at the expense of external driving, as active feedback refrigerators. We quantify the performance and robustness of the work-to-work conversion by hair bundles, whose efficiency in some conditions exceeds 80 % of the applied power.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_14485
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Active energy harvesting and work transduction by hair-cell bundles in bullfrog's inner ear
Thipmaungprom, Yanathip
Saliekh, Laila
Alonso, Rodrigo
Roldán, Édgar
Berger, Florian
Belousov, Roman
Statistical Mechanics
Cell Behavior
Hair cells actively drive oscillations of their mechanosensitive organelles--the hair bundles that enable hearing and balance sensing in vertebrates. Why and how some hair cells expend energy by sustaining this oscillatory motion in order to fulfill their function as signal sensors and others--as amplifiers, remains unknown. We develop a stochastic thermodynamic theory to describe energy flows in a periodically-driven hair bundle. Our analysis of thermodynamic fluxes associated with hair bundles' motion and external sinusoidal stimulus reveals that these organelles operate as thermodynamic work-to-work machines under different operational modes. One operational mode transduces the signal's power into the cell, whereas another allows the external stimulus to harvest the energy supplied by the cell. These two regimes might represent thermodynamic signatures of signal sensing and amplification respectively. In addition to work transduction and energy harvesting, our model also substantiates the capability of hair-cell bundles to operate as heaters and, at the expense of external driving, as active feedback refrigerators. We quantify the performance and robustness of the work-to-work conversion by hair bundles, whose efficiency in some conditions exceeds 80 % of the applied power.
title Active energy harvesting and work transduction by hair-cell bundles in bullfrog's inner ear
topic Statistical Mechanics
Cell Behavior
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.14485