Inner Ear Hair Bundle Proteomics

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目的是发现参与听力转导的蛋白质，并开始了解它们在听力转导机制中的重要性。对内耳毛束进行了鸟枪蛋白质组学筛选，以确定位于立体纤毛中的蛋白质，这是听力转导的重要结构。这种蛋白质组学筛选利用了多维蛋白鉴定技术（MudPIT），以增加低丰度和膜蛋白的覆盖率。对所得数据集的分析将确定哪些蛋白质可能参与听力转导机制，并将进一步探索这些蛋白质。抗体标记将是一个重要的验证，我们的技术是有效的，标记将帮助我们阐明蛋白质在立体纤毛中的功能。了解参与听力转导的蛋白质将有助于了解耳聋中发生的功能障碍，并可能最终导致耳聋治疗的改进。在美国，每1000名儿童中就有2到3名天生失聪或有听力障碍，与听力正常的人交流是一件非常困难的事情。为了改善对这些聋人的治疗，第一步是了解该系统的正常功能。

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.