Differentially expressed genes in inner ear hair cells

描述（由申请人提供）：毛细胞是上皮受体细胞，能够将听觉和前庭系统中的机械刺激转化为电反应。不同器官和同一器官内的毛细胞在形态、电生理和分子上存在显著差异。为了更全面地了解不同器官或同一器官内不同位置的不同类型的毛细胞如何发挥作用，听觉和前庭生物学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。本应用程序描述了两组实验，以解决毛细胞生物学中两个不同的问题，涉及分子异质性在创造功能多样性方面的作用。重叠和类似的技术将用于解决两个不同的问题。I型和II型细胞的基因表达有什么不同？耳蜗顶端毛细胞与基部毛细胞的基因表达有何差异？差异基因表达的后果将使用各种技术进行探索，这将取决于所鉴定的基因的性质。

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.