Hearing loss and hair cell death in mice given the cholesterol-chelating agent hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin.

ABSTRACT: Cyclodextrins are sugar compounds that are increasingly finding medicinal uses due to their ability to complex with hydrophobic molecules. One cyclodextrin in particular, 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPβCD), is used as a carrier to solubilize lipophilic drugs and is itself being considered as a therapeutic agent for treatment of Niemann-Pick Type C disease, due to its ability to mobilize cholesterol. Results from toxicological studies suggest that HPβCD is generally safe, but a recent study has found that it causes hearing loss in cats. Whether the hearing loss occurred via death of cochlear hair cells, rendering it permanent, was unexplored. In the present study, we examined peripheral auditory function and cochlear histology in mice after subcutaneous injection of HPβCD to test for he

SUBMITTER: Crumling MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3532434 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature