Abstract
Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a kind of hearing impairment, which is next to the age-related hearing loss. More and more evidences have verified that overproduction of reactive oxygen species is a common pathologic phenomenon of different inner ear injury including NIHL, and autophagy contributes to attenuate NIHL by reducing oxidative stress. However, the underlying mechanism by which noise exposure causes autophagy activation remains unclear. In this study, we found that NIHL was accompanied by autophagy in the rat cochlea. Furthermore, twelve common genes were found at the GEO datasets GSE85290 and GSE8342, and E3 ubiquitination ligase FBXO3 was confirmed significantly reduced in NIHL rat cochlea. Next, we demonstrated that FBXO3 can directly binding with autophagy-related protein 10 (ATG10), which is necessary for the initiation of autophagy, and mediate its degradation. In vivo animal model treatment with rapamycin, an autophagy activator, significantly reduced the NIHL. Based on these data, we confirmed that FBXO3 played an important role in autophagy caused by NIHL, may be a potential target of NIHL treatment.