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. Overall design: 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-seq