Chicken Auditory Supporting Cells Express Interferon Response Genes during Regeneration towards Nascent Sensory Hair CellsIn Vivo

Abstract

The avian hearing organ is the basilar papilla that, in sharp contrast to the mammalian cochlea, can regenerate sensory hair cells and thereby recover from complete deafness within weeks. The mechanisms that trigger, sustain, and terminate the regenerative response in vivo are largely unknown. Here, we profile the changes in gene expression in the chicken basilar papilla after aminoglycoside antibiotic-induced hair cell loss using RNA-sequencing. The most prominent changes in gene expression were linked to the upregulation of interferon response genes which occurred in supporting cells, confirmed by single-cell RNA-sequencing and in situ hybridization. We determined that the JAK/STAT signaling pathway is essential for the interferon gene response in supporting cells, set in motion by hair cell loss. Four days after ototoxic damage, we identified newly regenerated, nascent auditory hair cells that express genes linked to termination of the interferon response. These cells are incipient modified neurons that represent a population of hair cells en route towards obtaining their location-specific and fully functional cell identity. The robust, transient expression of immune-related genes in supporting cells suggests a potential functional involvement of JAK/STAT signaling and interferon in sensory hair cell regeneration.

Human otic progenitor cell models of congenital hearing loss reveal potential pathophysiologic mechanisms of Zika virus and cytomegalovirus infections

“…Prior evidence has demonstrated that both IGFBP3 and IGFBP5 play key roles in supporting the development of the cochlea during mammalian development ( 39 ). We also found that NREP expression (neuronal regeneration-related protein), which was recently shown to be expressed by regenerating chicken hair cells ( 40 ), was reduced throughout HCMV infection ( Table S1 ). Others have demonstrated that SOX11 is both necessary and sufficient for the development of hair cells in the inner ear ( 41 ), and the data suggest that HCMV infection reduced SOX11 expression at both timepoints ( Table S1 ).…”