A systemic gentamicin pathway across the stria vascularis

First, increasing doses of a constant molar ratio of gentamicin:GTTR, resulted in increasing intensities of GTTR fluorescence in hair cells and strial tissues. Second, a fixed gentamicin dose with increasing molar dilution of GTTR led to decreasing GTTR fluorescence in hair cells and strial tissues. Third, a fixed GTTR dose with increasing molar dilution by gentamicin led to decreased GTTR uptake in hair cells and marginal cells, but not intra-strial tissues and capillaries. Thus, only hair cell and marginal cell uptake of GTTR is competitively inhibited by gentamicin, suggesting that a regulatable barrier for gentamicin entry into endolymph exists at the interface between marginal cells, the intra-strial space and intermediate cells.