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. Two biological replicates were performed. The cochlear tissues were divided into three equal pieces representing the basal, middle and apical turns, and pooled separately. Twelve total RNA from the pooled samples were applied to 12 GeneChips.