Differentially expressed genes in inner ear hair cells

描述(申请人提供)：毛细胞是上皮性感受器细胞，能够在听觉和前庭系统中将机械刺激转换为电反应。不同器官和同一器官内的毛细胞在形态、电生理和分子水平上存在显著差异。为了更全面地了解不同器官中不同类型的毛细胞或同一器官内不同位置的毛细胞是如何发挥功能的，听觉和前庭生物学中的一个巨大挑战是识别不同细胞之间差异表达的不同基因，并将这些分子差异与特定毛细胞功能联系起来。本申请描述了两组实验，以解决毛细胞生物学中的两个截然不同的问题，这两个问题与分子异质性在创造功能多样性中所起的作用有关。将使用重叠和类似的技术来解决两个截然不同的问题。I型和II型细胞在基因表达上有什么不同？位于顶端和基底部的耳蜗毛细胞在基因表达上有什么不同？差异基因表达的后果将使用各种技术来探索，这将取决于所识别的基因的性质。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Hair cells are epithelial receptor cells that are capable of transducing mechanical stimuli into electrical responses in both auditory and vestibular systems. There are striking morphological, electrophysiological, and molecular differences between hair cells of different organs and within the same organ. In order to understand the greater picture of how different types of hair cells in different organs or in different positions within the same organ function, a great challenge in auditory and vestibular biology is to identify different genes that are differentially expressed between the different cells and correlate these molecular differences with specific hair cell functions. This application describes two sets of experiments to address two distinct problems in hair cell biology, relating to the role molecular heterogeneity plays creating functional diversity. Overlapping and similar technologies will be used to address two distinct questions. What are the differences in gene expression in type I and type II cells? What are the differences in gene expression in cochlear hair cells located in apical versus basal regions? The consequences of differential gene expression will be explored using a variety of techniques, which will depend on the nature of the genes that are identified.