Damage to the sensory hair cells in the inner ear is the most frequent cause of permanent hearing loss. Such destruction can be due to a number of causes, most notably exposure to loud noise, as well as certain drugs, disease, genetic factors and the natural process of aging.
While birds have the remarkable natural ability to regenerate sensory hair cells, thus restoring their hearing, mammals -- including humans -- unfortunately lack this ability. Dr. Edwin Rubel, professor of hearing science at the University of Washington's Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center, was one of the discoverers of this ability in birds a decade ago.
Now, Rubel and colleagues in Germany, the United Kingdom and Seattle have published results of their latest research in the March 30 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, providing an explanation for the inability of mammals past the embryo stage to regenerate sensory hair cells. The new research uses mice specially bred without an enzyme that inhibits cell division.
Hair cell production requires the successful completion of two relatively independent processes, explained Rubel. The first set of events (on which the current research focuses) is the division and proliferation of the "support cells" that survive the damage inflicted by loud noise or other causes. Support cells are located in the sensory epithelium (an area called the organ of Corti on the surface of the inner ear) and they surround the hair cells. In birds, these support cells have the ability to divide and proliferate into new support cells and -- in the second step -- into new hair cells.
However, the support cells in the sensory epithelium of the postnatal mammal are terminally differentiated, or incapable of dividing and proliferating, as they are able to do at the embryo stage.
Earlier research showed that such terminally differentiated cells
express high levels of
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Contact: Laurie McHale
lmchale@u.washington.edu
206-543-3620
University of Washington
6-Apr-1999