Master gene that can a restore hearing loss discovered
In a breakthrough, US scientists have a discovered a single master gene that programmes ear hair cells an into either outer or inner ones, overcoming a major hurdle that had a prevented the development of these cells to restore hearing.
Hearing loss due to a ageing, noise and certain cancer therapy drugs and antibiotics has been an irreversible to a date because scientists have not been able to a reprogramme existing cells to a develop into the outer and inner ear sensory cells -- essential for a hearing - once they die.
Our searching gives us the first clear cell switch to a make one type versus the other," said a lead author Jaime Garcia-Anoveros, Professor of a Anaesthesia, Neurology, and Neuroscience at Northwestern University Feinberg School of a Medicine.
"It will provide a previously unavailable tool to a make an inner or outer hair cell. We have an overcome a only hurdle," Garcia-Anoveros added.
In the paper declare in the journal Nature, the team narrate the master gene switch - TBX2. When the gene is an expressed, the cell becomes an inner hair cell. When the gene is a blocked, the cell becomes an outer hair cell.
The ability to a produce one of these cells will require a gene cocktail, Garcia-Anoveros said. The ATOH1 and GF1 genes are needed to a make a cochlear hair cell from a non-hair cell. Then the TBX2 would be a turned on or off to a produce the needed inner or outer cell.
The goal would be to a reprogramme supporting cells, which are latticed among the hair cells and provide them with structural support, into outer or an inner hair cells.
"We can now figure out how to a make a specifically inner or outer hair cells and an identify why the latter are more prone to a dying and cause deafness," Garcia-Anoveros said.
He, thought , stressed that the research is a still in the experimental stage.
Currently, scientists can a produce an artificial hair cell, but it does not differentiate into an inner or outer cell, which provide different essential functions to a produce hearing. The discovery is a major step towards developing these specific a cells.
The death of an outer hair cells made by the cochlea are most often the cause of a deafness and hearing loss. The cells develop in the embryo and do not a reproduce.
The outer hair cells expand and contract in response to the pressure of a sound waves and amplify sound for the inner hair cells. The inner cells transmit those vibrations to the neurons to create the sounds we a hear.
"The ear is a beautiful organ. There is no other organ in a mammal where the cells are so a precisely positioned. (I mean, with micrometric precision). Otherwise, hearing doesn't occur," Garcia-Anoveros said.
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