A combined genome-wide association and molecular study of age-related hearing loss in H. sapiens.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34847940.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1186/s12916-021-02169-0 and PMC identifier 8638543.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Sensorineural hearing loss is one of the most common sensory deficiencies. However, the molecular contribution to age-related hearing loss is not fully elucidated. We performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for hearing loss-related traits in the UK Biobank (N = 362,396) and selected a high confidence set of ten hearing-associated gene products for staining in human cochlear samples: EYA4, LMX1A, PTK2/FAK, UBE3B, MMP2, SYNJ2, GRM5, TRIOBP, LMO-7, and NOX4. All proteins were found to be expressed in human cochlear structures. Our findings illustrate cochlear structures that mediate mechano-electric transduction of auditory stimuli, neuronal conductance, and neuronal plasticity to be involved in age-related hearing loss. Our results suggest common genetic variation to influence structural resilience to damage as well as cochlear recovery after trauma, which protect against accumulated damage to cochlear structures and the development of hearing loss over time.
Medical subject headings
- Hearing Loss
- Hearing Loss, Sensorineural