by Keck School of Medicine of USC – MedicalXpress
Image caption: Rows of sensory hearing cells (green) next to supporting cells (red) in the inner ear of a mouse. Credit: John Duc Nguyen and Juan Llamas/Segil Lab
A deafened adult cannot recover the ability to hear, because the sensory hearing cells of the inner ear don’t regenerate after damage. In two new studies, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS), USC stem cell scientists explain why this is the case and how we might be able to change it.
“In the non-sensory supporting cells of the inner ear, key genes required for conversion to sensory cells are shut off through a process known as ‘epigenetic silencing.’ By studying how the genes are shut off, we begin to understand how we might turn them back on to regenerate hearing,” said John Duc Nguyen, the first author of one of the papers.