Tricellular Tight Junctions in the Inner Ear

Figure 1

Schematic image of the tricellular tight junction (tTJ). The TJs between two cells (bicellular TJ, bTJ) function to seal off the intercellular space (black lines). However, the corner where three cells meet (green dots) cannot be occluded by bTJ proteins alone and a central “tube” may exist. tTJ proteins (red dots and yellow dots) are localized at this site and play a role in providing a barrier.