Factors Regulating Inner Ear Specification

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The vertebrate inner ear is a sensory organ implicated in hearing, balance and detection of acceleration. It develops from a thickening of the embryonic ectoderm known as the otic placode. Defining the molecular processes leading to specification of the otic placode is essential to understand inner ear development. Sox proteins comprise a large class of transcriptional regulators. One member of this family, Sox9, a well- established regulator of chondrogenesis and sex determination, is also one of the earliest genes expressed in the presumptive otic placode. Mutations in Sox9 result in campomelic dysplasia (CD), a fatal human disorder characterized by severe skeletal malformations and XY sex reversal. Reports of rare CD patients that survived indicate that they are also affected with sensorineural deafness, suggesting that Sox9 may play an important role in the development of the auditory system. We have shown that the otic expression of Sox9 in Xenopus is initiated early in the sensory layer of the ectoderm. In this tissue, Sox9 expression is regulated by Fgf and Wnt signaling and co-localizes with Pax8, one of the earliest gene expressed in response to otic placode inducing signals. Depletion of Sox9 protein in whole embryos using morpholino antisense oligonucleotides causes a dramatic loss of early and late otic markers, and in the most extreme cases these embryos fail to form a morphologically recognizable otic vesicle. The experiments below will test the following hypothesis: the transcription factor Sox9 is a key component of regulatory pathway required for inner ear specification. We propose: 1-To define the molecular regulators of Sox9 expression in the otic placode by establishing the origin of the signals activating Sox9 expression in the otic placode; and defining the requirement and sufficiency of Fgf and Wnt signaling for otic placode specification in whole embryos and animal explants. 2-To characterize the ear phenotype of Xenpopus Sox9-deficient embryos 3-To identify Sox9-interacting partner molecules in the otic placode using a yeast two-hybrid screen, since Sox proteins are known to regulate their target genes through interaction with cell type-specific partner molecules.The characterization of such partner molecules should further our understanding of Sox9-mediated gene regulation in the context of the developing inner ear.