Unraveling age-related cellular and molecular changes associated with vestibular hair cells

The cochlear and vestibular sensory epithelia contain four types of hair cells (HCs) for detecting sound and head motion respectively. In the current study, we comprehensively assessed the molecular changes associated with vestibular HCs with aging to identify age-related marker genes for age-related vestibular dysfunction and performed a comparative analysis with cochlear aging to assess the aging patterns in the two organs of the inner ear. Overall design: HCs from cochlear and vestibular sensory organs were isolated from 22-month-old CBA/J mice. cDNA library was constructed using the 10x Genomics Chromium Single Cell 3' V3.1 dual index kit. Seven mice were used for each biological replicate. Six and four biological replicates were prepared for cochlear sensory epithelium and vestibular sensory epithelia respectively. Illumina NextSeq 6000 sequencer was used for sequencing.