[Organ culture system for inner ears].

This paper reports an organ culture system using 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) hydrogel as a substrate to study the development of otocysts and statoacoustic ganglions of the mouse embryos in vitro. Twelfth and thirteenth gestation-day otocysts and statoacoustic ganglions with otic sensory epithelium and/or rhombencephalon developed well on the HEMA hydrogel. Normal morphogenesis of the inner ears and cytodifferentiation of their sensory epithelia were noted. Neurons of the statoacoustic ganglions differentiated well with outgrowth of nerve fibers. The new organ culture system can be used for cultivating otocysts extracorporeally, facilitating investigation of the effects of various biologically active extracellular proteins, glycoproteins and glycosaminoglycans on statoacoustic ganglion-target tissue explants.