EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE 2 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on Thursday, 10 June 1999
UIC RESEARCHER FINDS ESSENTIAL HEARING GENE
Using an advanced microscope facility, a researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago has identified a key step in the development of sensory cells in the inner ear known as hair cells. The discovery could lead to gene therapy treatments for some common types of hearing loss and dizziness.
Anna Lysakowski, an associate professor of anatomy and cell biology, worked with colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas on a study of how mammalian hair cells develop at the molecular level. The hair cells, which line the cochlea and vestibular labyrinth of the inner ear, help translate sound and head motion into nerve signals to the brain.
The finding is reported in the June 11 issue of Science magazine.
The potential clinical applications of this and further studies "cannot be overlooked," the researchers wrote, "since loss of hair cells through disease, trauma and aging is a common cause of deafness and vestibular dysfunction (dizziness)." Hair cells can be damaged as a side effect of some antibiotics, Lysakowski said, or as a result of aging or exposure to loud noises. Some kinds of hearing loss are due to more than just the loss of hair cells, however.
Lysakowski and her colleagues discovered that a gene known as Math1 is necessary for hair cells to grow in mice. The researchers knew that a counterpart of this gene is involved in sensory perception in fruit flies; they tested its function in mice by producing a strain lacking the Math1 gene. These mice failed to generate hair cells in either the cochlea or the vestibular organs, fluid-filled structures that sense head motion and help maintain balance. The cells normally have developed by the time mouse embryos are about 18 days old.
The cells that did develop in mice lacking the Math1 gene were support cells that share a common precursor with hair cells, Lysakowski said, which suggests that epithelial or outer surface cells express a "pro-hair cell gene" - probably the Math1 gene - that is essential to grow hair cells.
"It would be theoretically possible, then, to turn on the gene, grow new hair cells, and turn off the gene again," said Lysakowski.
Crucial to the study was UIC's Research Resources Center, which houses state-of-the-art instrumentation for university researchers and their colleagues in academia or industry. Lysakowski and her colleague at UIC, Steven Price, checked the development of hair cells by examining tissue using UIC's scanning electron and transmission electron microscopes.
Other authors on the Science paper include Ruth Anne Eatock and Melissa Vollrath of Baylor College of Medicine, Huda Zoghbi, Nessan Bermingham, Bassem Hassan and Hugo Bellen of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Baylor College of Medicine, Price and Nessim Ben-Arie, formerly at Baylor, and currently at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.
- UIC -
RSS