Expression profiling of cochlear ducts from P8 Gfi1cre/+ and Gfi1+/+ mice

The Gfi1-Cre mouse is commonly used for conditional hair cell-specific gene deletion/activation in the inner ear. However, we have shown that these mice produce a pattern of recombination that is not strictly limited to hair cells, and that Gfi1cre/+ mice exhibit an early onset progressive hearing loss as compared with their wildtype littermates. Here we performed a transcriptome analysis of Gfi1cre/+ and Gfi1+/+ cochlea to detect potential changes in gene expression that could contribute to their hearing loss phenotype, or that could potentially confound downstream analysis of conditional gene deletion using these mice. Trancriptome profiles of P8 cochlear duct from mice of two genotype - Gfi1cre/+ and Gfi+/+ controls - were measured. Gene expression levels were recorded in independent triplicates using polyA-enriched RNA-seqGfi1-Cre 小鼠（Gfi1-Cre mouse）常被应用于内耳毛细胞特异性条件性基因敲除/激活实验。然而，本研究证实该品系小鼠的重组模式并非严格局限于毛细胞；且相较于野生型同窝仔鼠，Gfi1cre/+ 小鼠会表现出早发性进行性听力损失。为检测可能导致其听力损失表型的基因表达变化，或可能干扰使用该品系小鼠开展条件性基因敲除后续分析的潜在差异，本研究对Gfi1cre/+ 与 Gfi1+/+ 小鼠的耳蜗开展转录组分析（transcriptome analysis）。本研究对两种基因型（Gfi1cre/+ 与 Gfi+/+ 对照）的P8龄小鼠耳蜗导管进行了转录组测序，采用polyA富集RNA测序（polyA-enriched RNA-seq）技术完成独立三次重复实验，并记录基因表达水平。