Gene expression profiles along the tonotopic axis of the mouse cochlea during neonatal development

The cochlear duct is tonotopically organized, such that the basal cochlea responds more sensitively to high frequency sounds and the apical cochlea to low frequency sounds. In effort to understand how the tonotopic organization is established in mammals, we searched for genes that are differentially expressed along the tonotopic axis during neonatal development. Eighty temporal bones were dissected from C57BL/6 mice at P0 and P8. The cochlear tissues were divided into three equal pieces representing the basal, middle and apical turns, and pooled separately. Six total RNA from the pooled samples were applied to 6 GeneChips.耳蜗管（cochlear duct）具有音调拓扑组织（tonotopic organization）特性：基底耳蜗对高频声波的响应敏感性更高，而顶端耳蜗则对低频声波更为敏感。为阐明哺乳动物耳蜗音调拓扑组织的形成机制，我们筛选了新生期发育过程中沿音调拓扑轴（tonotopic axis）差异表达的基因。本研究从出生后第0天（P0）与第8天（P8）的C57BL/6小鼠中解剖获取80个颞骨，将耳蜗组织平均划分为代表底转、中转与顶转的三段，并分别进行混合样本制备。从各混合样本中提取总RNA，共获得6份RNA样品，用于6张GeneChip芯片的检测。