Molecular changes associated with biological aging of cochlear hair cells

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is a progressive sensorineural hearing loss that occurs as people get older. As many as 35% to 50% of the population aged between 65 and 75 have ARHL. Although age-related changes in the central auditory system can contribute to hearing impairment, degeneration of the mechanosensitive hair cells in the cochlea is the prevalent cause of ARHL. The molecular mechanisms of hair cell aging are largely unknown. To provide a comprehensive dataset of age-related genes and pathways in hair cells, we individually collected inner and outer hair cells, the two types of sensory receptor cells in the cochlea, from 9- and 26-month-old CBA/J mice and performed cell type-specific transcriptomic analysis. Our analysis showed a significant reduction of the expression of genes related to hair cell structure and function such as Tmc1, Kcnq4, Kcnj13, Slc7a14, Slc17a8, Chrna9/Chrna10, and Slc26a5. Our hair cell-specific transcriptome analysis provides a rich resource for mechanistic studies of biological aging of cochlear hair cells. Overall design: Individual inner hair cells and outer hair cells were manually and separately collected from cochleae of CBA mice aged 9 and 26 months based on their morphology using the pipette-aspiration technique. Each sample represents a biological replicate including ~1,000 hair cells collected from cochleae of 6 - 18 mice (both male and female).