Department of Craniofacial Development and Stem Cell Biology, King's College London, Guy's Tower Wing, Floor 27, London SE1 9RT, UK.
Hear Res. 2013 Mar;297:3-12. doi: 10.1016/j.heares.2012.11.018. Epub 2012 Nov 27.
Despite its complexity in the adult, during development the inner ear arises from a simple epithelium, the otic placode. Placode specification is a multistep process that involves the integration of various signalling pathways and downstream transcription factors in time and space. Here we review the molecular events that successively commit multipotent ectodermal precursors to the otic lineage. The first step in this hierarchy is the specification of sensory progenitor cells, which can contribute to all sensory placodes, followed by the induction of a common otic-epibranchial field and finally the establishment the otic territory. In recent years, some of the molecular components that control this process have been identified, and begin to reveal complex interactions. Future studies will need to unravel how this information is integrated and encoded in the genome. This will form the blueprint for stem cell differentiation towards otic fates and generate a predictive gene regulatory network that models the earliest steps of otic specification.
尽管成人内耳结构复杂，但在发育过程中，内耳起源于一个简单的上皮组织，即听基板。基板特化是一个多步骤的过程，涉及各种信号通路和下游转录因子在时间和空间上的整合。在这里，我们综述了相继将多能外胚层前体细胞特化为听系细胞的分子事件。这一层次结构的第一步是感觉祖细胞的特化，它可以为所有感觉基板做出贡献，随后诱导共同的听基板-前鳃基板区域，最后建立听基板区域。近年来，已经鉴定出一些控制这一过程的分子成分，并开始揭示复杂的相互作用。未来的研究需要阐明如何将这些信息整合并编码到基因组中。这将为干细胞向听系命运分化形成蓝图，并生成一个预测性的基因调控网络，该网络模拟了听基板特化的最早步骤。
