Inner Ear Hair Bundle Proteomics

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this research is to discover proteins involved in hearing transduction and to begin to understand their importance in the mechanism of hearing transduction. A shotgun proteomic screen of inner ear hair bundles has been done to identify proteins located in stereocilia, which are the structures important to hearing transduction. This proteomic screen takes advantage of multidimensional protein identification technology (MudPIT) in order to increase coverage of low abundance and membrane proteins. Analysis of the resultant dataset will determine which proteins are potentially involved in the hearing transduction mechanism, and these proteins will be further explored. Antibody labeling will be an important verification that our technique works, and the labeling will helps us elucidate the function of the protein in stereocilia. Understanding of the proteins involved in hearing transduction will help to understand what malfunctions occur in deafness, and may eventually lead to an improved treatment of deafness. For the 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children in the United States born deaf or hard-of-hearing, communication with the hearing world is a great hardship. In order to improve treatments for these deaf people, the first step is to understand the normal function of the system.