scholarly journals Inner Ear Hair Cell Protection in Mammals against the Noise-Induced Cochlear Damage

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Waqas ◽  
Song Gao ◽  
Iram-us-Salam ◽  
Muhammad Kazim Ali ◽  
Yongming Ma ◽  
...  

Inner ear hair cells are mechanosensory receptors that perceive mechanical sound and help to decode the sound in order to understand spoken language. Exposure to intense noise may result in the damage to the inner ear hair cells, causing noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Particularly, the outer hair cells are the first and the most affected cells in NIHL. After acoustic trauma, hair cells lose their structural integrity and initiate a self-deterioration process due to the oxidative stress. The activation of different cellular death pathways leads to complete hair cell death. This review specifically presents the current understanding of the mechanism exists behind the loss of inner ear hair cell in the auditory portion after noise-induced trauma. The article also explains the recent hair cell protection strategies to prevent the damage and restore hearing function in mammals.

Development ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 127 (21) ◽  
pp. 4551-4560 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.L. Zheng ◽  
J. Shou ◽  
F. Guillemot ◽  
R. Kageyama ◽  
W.Q. Gao

Hair cell fate determination in the inner ear has been shown to be controlled by specific genes. Recent loss-of-function and gain-of-function experiments have demonstrated that Math1, a mouse homolog of the Drosophila gene atonal, is essential for the production of hair cells. To identify genes that may interact with Math1 and inhibit hair cell differentiation, we have focused on Hes1, a mammalian hairy and enhancer of split homolog, which is a negative regulator of neurogenesis. We report here that targeted deletion of Hes1 leads to formation of supernumerary hair cells in the cochlea and utricle of the inner ear. RT-PCR analysis shows that Hes1 is expressed in inner ear during hair cell differentiation and its expression is maintained in adulthood. In situ hybridization with late embryonic inner ear tissue reveals that Hes1 is expressed in supporting cells, but not hair cells, of the vestibular sensory epithelium. In the cochlea, Hes1 is selectively expressed in the greater epithelial ridge and lesser epithelial ridge regions which are adjacent to inner and outer hair cells. Co-transfection experiments in postnatal rat explant cultures show that overexpression of Hes1 prevents hair cell differentiation induced by Math1. Therefore Hes1 can negatively regulate hair cell differentiation by antagonizing Math1. These results suggest that a balance between Math1 and negative regulators such as Hes1 is crucial for the production of an appropriate number of inner ear hair cells.


1983 ◽  
Vol 92 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomonori Takasaka ◽  
Hideich Shinkawa ◽  
Kozo Watanuki ◽  
Sho Hashimoto ◽  
Kazutomo Kawamoto

The technique and some preliminary results of the application of high-voltage electron microscopy (HVEM) to the study of inner ear morphology in the guinea pig are reported in this paper. The main advantage of HVEM is that sharp images of thicker specimens can be obtained because of the greater penetrating power of high energy electrons. The optimum thickness of the sections examined with an accelerating voltage of 1,000 kV was found to be between 500 to 800 nm. The sections below 500 nm in thickness often had insufficient contrast, while those above 800 nm were rather difficult to interpret due to overlap of images of the organelles. The whole structure of the sensory hairs from the tip to the rootlet was more frequently observed in the 800-nm thick sections. Thus the fine details of the hair attachment to the tectorial membrane as well as the hair rootlet extension into the cuticular plate could be thoroughly studied in the HVEM. In specimens fixed in aldehyde containing 2% tannic acid, the attachment of the tips of the outer hair cell stereocilia to the tectorial membrane was observed. For the inner hair cells, however, the tips of the hairs were separated from the undersurface of the tectorial membrane. The majority of the rootlets of the outer hair cells terminated at the midportion of the cuticular plate, while most of the inner hair cell rootlets traversed the entire width of the cuticular plate and extended into the apical cytoplasm. These differences in ultrastructural appearance may indicate that the two kinds of hair cells play different roles in the acoustic transduction process. The three-dimensional arrangement of the nerve endings on the hair cells was also studied by the serial thick-sectioning technique in the HVEM. In general, an entire arrangement of the nerve endings was almost completely cut in less than ten 800-nm thick sections instead of the 50- to 100-ultrathin (ie, less than 100 nm) conventional sections for transmission electron microscopy. The present study confirms an earlier report that the first row outer hair cells in the third cochlear turn are innervated by nearly equal numbers of efferent and afferent endings, the average number being nine.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Chang Liu ◽  
Zhiwei Zheng ◽  
Pengjun Wang ◽  
Shuangba He ◽  
Yingzi He

As a general sensory disorder, hearing loss was a major concern worldwide. Autophagy is a common cellular reaction to stress that degrades cytoplasmic waste through the lysosome pathway. Autophagy not only plays major roles in maintaining intracellular homeostasis but is also involved in the development and pathogenesis of many diseases. In the auditory system, several studies revealed the link between autophagy and hearing protection. In this review, we aimed to establish the correlation between autophagy and hair cells (HCs) from the aspects of ototoxic drugs, aging, and acoustic trauma and discussed whether autophagy could serve as a potential measure in the protection of HCs.


ORL ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 266-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuh-Shyang Chen ◽  
Tien-Chen Liu ◽  
Chiung-Hsiang Cheng ◽  
Te-Huei Yeh ◽  
Shiann-Yann Lee ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Xiao Lin ◽  
Michael G. K. Brunk ◽  
Pingan Yuanxiang ◽  
Andrew W. Curran ◽  
Enqi Zhang ◽  
...  

AbstractHearing deficits impact on the communication with the external world and severely compromise perception of the surrounding. Deafness can be caused by particular mutations in the neuroplastin (Nptn) gene, which encodes a transmembrane recognition molecule of the immunoglobulin (Ig) superfamily and plasma membrane Calcium ATPase (PMCA) accessory subunit. This study investigates whether the complete absence of neuroplastin or the loss of neuroplastin in the adult after normal development lead to hearing impairment in mice analyzed by behavioral, electrophysiological, and in vivo imaging measurements. Auditory brainstem recordings from adult neuroplastin-deficient mice (Nptn−/−) show that these mice are deaf. With age, hair cells and spiral ganglion cells degenerate in Nptn−/− mice. Adult Nptn−/− mice fail to behaviorally respond to white noise and show reduced baseline blood flow in the auditory cortex (AC) as revealed by single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). In adult Nptn−/− mice, tone-evoked cortical activity was not detectable within the primary auditory field (A1) of the AC, although we observed non-persistent tone-like evoked activities in electrophysiological recordings of some young Nptn−/− mice. Conditional ablation of neuroplastin in Nptnlox/loxEmx1Cre mice reveals that behavioral responses to simple tones or white noise do not require neuroplastin expression by central glutamatergic neurons. Loss of neuroplastin from hair cells in adult NptnΔlox/loxPrCreERT mice after normal development is correlated with increased hearing thresholds and only high prepulse intensities result in effective prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the startle response. Furthermore, we show that neuroplastin is required for the expression of PMCA 2 in outer hair cells. This suggests that altered Ca2+ homeostasis underlies the observed hearing impairments and leads to hair cell degeneration. Our results underline the importance of neuroplastin for the development and the maintenance of the auditory system.


1998 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 2235-2239 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Oghalai ◽  
Jeffrey R. Holt ◽  
Takashi Nakagawa ◽  
Thomas M. Jung ◽  
Newton J. Coker ◽  
...  

Oghalai, John S., Jeffrey R. Holt, Takashi Nakagawa, Thomas M. Jung, Newton J. Coker, Herman A. Jenkins, Ruth Anne Eatock, and William E. Brownell. Ionic currents and electromotility in inner ear hair cells from humans. J. Neurophysiol. 79: 2235–2239, 1998. The upright posture and rich vocalizations of primates place demands on their senses of balance and hearing that differ from those of other animals. There is a wealth of behavioral, psychophysical, and CNS measures characterizing these senses in primates, but no prior recordings from their inner ear sensory receptor cells. We harvested human hair cells from patients undergoing surgical removal of life-threatening brain stem tumors and measured their ionic currents and electromotile responses. The hair cells were either isolated or left in situ in their sensory epithelium and investigated using the tight-seal, whole cell technique. We recorded from both type I and type II vestibular hair cells under voltage clamp and found four voltage-dependent currents, each of which has been reported in hair cells of other animals. Cochlear outer hair cells demonstrated electromotility in response to voltage steps like that seen in rodent animal models. Our results reveal many qualitative similarities to hair cells obtained from other animals and justify continued investigations to explore quantitative differences that may be associated with normal or pathological human sensation.


eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meenakshi Prajapati-DiNubila ◽  
Ana Benito-Gonzalez ◽  
Erin Jennifer Golden ◽  
Shuran Zhang ◽  
Angelika Doetzlhofer

The mammalian auditory sensory epithelium has one of the most stereotyped cellular patterns known in vertebrates. Mechano-sensory hair cells are arranged in precise rows, with one row of inner and three rows of outer hair cells spanning the length of the spiral-shaped sensory epithelium. Aiding such precise cellular patterning, differentiation of the auditory sensory epithelium is precisely timed and follows a steep longitudinal gradient. The molecular signals that promote auditory sensory differentiation and instruct its graded pattern are largely unknown. Here, we identify Activin A and its antagonist follistatin as key regulators of hair cell differentiation and show, using mouse genetic approaches, that a local gradient of Activin A signaling within the auditory sensory epithelium times the longitudinal gradient of hair cell differentiation. Furthermore, we provide evidence that Activin-type signaling regulates a radial gradient of terminal mitosis within the auditory sensory epithelium, which constitutes a novel mechanism for limiting the number of inner hair cells being produced.


Development ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 121 (10) ◽  
pp. 3381-3391 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Schimmang ◽  
L. Minichiello ◽  
E. Vazquez ◽  
I. San Jose ◽  
F. Giraldez ◽  
...  

The trkB and trkC genes are expressed during the formation of the vestibular and auditory system. To elucidate the function of trkB and trkC during this process, we have analysed mice carrying a germline mutation in the tyrosine kinase catalytic domain of these genes. Neuroanatomical analysis of homozygous mutant mice revealed neuronal deficiencies in the vestibular and cochlear ganglia. In trkB (−/−) animals vestibular neurons and a subset of cochlear neurons responsible for the innervation of outer hair cells were drastically reduced. The peripheral targets of the respective neurons showed severe innervation defects. A comparative analysis of ganglia from trkC (−/−) mutants revealed a moderate reduction of vestibular neurons and a specific loss of cochlear neurons innervating inner hair cells. No nerve fibres were detected in the sensory epithelium containing inner hair cells. A developmental study of trkB (−/−) and trkC (−/−) mice showed that some vestibular and cochlear fibres initially reached their peripheral targets but failed to maintain innervation and degenerated. TrkB and TrkC receptors are therefore required for the survival of specific neuronal populations and the maintenance of target innervation in the peripheral sensory system of the inner ear.


Development ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 126 (5) ◽  
pp. 961-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.S. Stone ◽  
E.W. Rubel

Postembryonic production of hair cells, the highly specialized receptors for hearing, balance and motion detection, occurs in a precisely controlled manner in select species, including avians. Notch1, Delta1 and Serrate1 mediate cell specification in several tissues and species. We examined expression of the chicken homologs of these genes in the normal and drug-damaged chick inner ear to determine if signaling through this pathway changes during hair cell regeneration. In untreated post-hatch chicks, Delta1 mRNA is abundant in a subpopulation of cells in the utricle, which undergoes continual postembryonic hair cell production, but it is absent from all cells in the basilar papilla, which is mitotically quiescent. By 3 days after drug-induced hair cell injury, Delta1 expression is highly upregulated in areas of cell proliferation in both the utricle and basilar papilla. Delta1 mRNA levels are elevated in progenitor cells during DNA synthesis and/or gap 2 phases of the cell cycle and expression is maintained in both daughter cells immediately after mitosis. Delta1 expression remains upregulated in cells that differentiate into hair cells and is downregulated in cells that do not acquire the hair cell fate. Delta1 mRNA levels return to normal by 10 days after hair cell injury. Serrate1 is expressed in both hair cells and support cells in the utricle and basilar papilla, and its expression does not change during the course of drug-induced hair cell regeneration. In contrast, Notch1 expression, which is limited to support cells in the quiescent epithelium, is increased in post-M-phase cell pairs during hair cell regeneration. This study provides initial evidence that Delta-Notch signaling may be involved in maintaining the correct cell types and patterns during postembryonic replacement of sensory epithelial cells in the chick inner ear.


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