Atoh1 is required in supporting cells for regeneration of vestibular hair cells in adult mice.

Atoh1 is required in supporting cells for regeneration of vestibular hair cells in adult mice. Hear Res. 2019 Nov 07;385:107838 Authors: Hicks KL, Wisner SR, Cox BC, Stone JS Abstract In amniotes, head movements are encoded by two types of vestibular hair cells (type I and type II) with unique morphology, physiology, and innervation. After hair cell destruction in mature rodents, supporting cells regenerate some type II hair cells, but no type I hair cells are replaced. The transcription factor Atoh1 is required for hair cell development, and Atoh1 is upregulated in supporting cells, the hair cell progenitors, in mature chickens and mice following hair cell damage. We investigated whether Atoh1 is required for type II hair cell regeneration in adult mice after genetic ablation of hair cells. First, we used a knock-in Atoh1 reporter to demonstrate that supporting cells in the utricle, a vestibular organ that detects linear acceleration of the head, upregulate Atoh1 expression by 7 days after hair cell destruction was initiated. Next, we labeled supporting cells prior to damage and fate-mapped them over time to test whether conditional deletion of Atoh1 from supporting cells prevented them from converting into hair cells after damage. In mice with normal Atoh1 expression, fate-mapped supporting cells in the adult utricle gave rise to hundreds of type II hair cells after hair cell destruction, but they did not form new type I hair cells...
Source: Hearing Research - Category: Audiology Authors: Tags: Hear Res Source Type: research