Transcriptomic analysis highlights cochlear inflammation associated with age-related hearing loss in C57BL/6 mice using next generation sequencing

PeerJ

article

Zhongwu Su¹  Hao Xiong¹  Yi Liu³  Jiaqi Pang¹  Hanqing Lin¹  Weijian Zhang¹  Yiqing Zheng¹ 

[1] Department of Otolaryngology, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University;Institute of Hearing and Speech-Language Science, Sun Yat-sen University;Department of Otolaryngology, Guangdong Women and Children Hospital

关键词: Age-related hearing loss;    Inflammation;    Aging;    Apoptosis;    Necroptosis;    RNA sequencing;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.9737

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Background In our aging society, age-related hearing loss (AHL) is the most common sensory disorder in old people. Much progress has been made in understanding the pathological process of AHL over the past few decades. However, the mechanism of cochlear degeneration during aging is still not fully understood. Methods Next generation sequencing technique was used to sequence the whole transcriptome of the cochlea of C57BL/6 mice, a mouse model of AHL. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified using the Cuffdiff software. GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses of the DEGs were implemented by using the GOseq R package and KOBAS software, respectively. Results A total of 731 genes (379 up- and 352 down-regulated) were revealed to be differentially expressed in the cochlea of aged mice compared to the young. Many genes associated with aging, apoptosis, necroptosis and particularly, inflammation were identified as being significantly modulated in the aged cochlea. GO and KEGG analyses of the upregulated DEGs revealed that the most enriched terms were associated with immune responses and inflammatory pathways, whereas many of the downregulated genes are involved in ion channel function and neuronal signaling. Real-time qPCR showed that H2O2 treatment significantly induced the expression of multiple inflammation and necroptosis-related genes in HEI-OC1 cells. Conclusion Using next generation sequencing, our transcriptomic analysis revealed the differences of gene expression pattern with age in the cochlea of C57BL/6 mice. Our study also revealed multiple immune and inflammatory transcriptomic changes during cochlear aging and provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying cochlear inflammation in AHL.

【 授权许可】

CC BY