Inner ear hair cells produced in vitro by a mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition.

ABSTRACT: Sensory hair cell loss is a major contributor to disabling hearing and balance deficits that affect >250 million people worldwide. Sound exposures, infections, drug toxicity, genetic disorders, and aging all can cause hair cell loss and lead to permanent sensory deficits. Progress toward treatments for these deficits has been limited, in part because hair cells have only been obtainable via microdissection of the anatomically complex internal ear. Attempts to produce hair cells in vitro have resulted in reports of some success but have required transplantation into embryonic ears or coculturing with other tissues. Here, we show that avian inner ear cells can be cultured and passaged for months, frozen, and expanded to large numbers without other tissues. At any point from passage 6 up to a

SUBMITTER: Hu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1994140 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature