Liu Hongchao, Peng Hu, Wang Longhao, Xu Pengcheng, Wang Zhaoyan, Liu Huihui, Wu Hao
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Ear Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021 Feb 5;8:635201. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2020.635201. eCollection 2020.
Noise exposure of a short period at a moderate level can produce permanent cochlear synaptopathy without seeing lasting changes in audiometric threshold. However, due to the species differences in inner hair cell (IHC) calcium current that we have recently discovered, the susceptibility to noise exposure may vary, thereby impact outcomes of noise exposure. In this study, we investigate the consequences of noise exposure in the two commonly used animal models in hearing research, CBA/CaJ (CBA) and C57BL/6J (B6) mice, focusing on the functional changes of cochlear IHCs. In the CBA mice, moderate noise exposure resulted in a typical fully recovered audiometric threshold but a reduced wave I amplitude of auditory brainstem responses. In contrast, both auditory brainstem response threshold and wave I amplitude fully recovered in B6 mice at 2 weeks after noise exposure. Confocal microscopy observations found that ribbon synapses of IHCs recovered in B6 mice but not in CBA mice. To further characterize the molecular mechanism underlying these different phenotypes in synaptopathy, we compared the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 with the expression of cytochrome-C and found increased activity in CBA mice after noise exposure. Under whole-cell patch clamped IHCs, we acquired two-photon calcium imaging around the active zone to evaluate the Ca clearance rate and found that CBA mice have a slower calcium clearance rate. Our results indicated that excessive accumulation of calcium due to acoustic overexposure and slow clearance around the presynaptic ribbon might lead to disruption of calcium homeostasis, followed by mitochondrial dysfunction of IHCs that cause susceptibility of noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy in CBA mice.
短时间中等强度的噪声暴露可导致永久性耳蜗突触病变,而听阈却无持久变化。然而,由于我们最近发现的内毛细胞(IHC)钙电流存在物种差异,噪声暴露的易感性可能有所不同,从而影响噪声暴露的结果。在本研究中,我们调查了听力研究中两种常用动物模型CBA/CaJ(CBA)和C57BL/6J(B6)小鼠的噪声暴露后果,重点关注耳蜗内毛细胞的功能变化。在CBA小鼠中,中等强度噪声暴露导致听阈典型地完全恢复,但听觉脑干反应的I波振幅降低。相比之下,B6小鼠在噪声暴露后2周时,听觉脑干反应阈值和I波振幅均完全恢复。共聚焦显微镜观察发现,B6小鼠内毛细胞的带状突触恢复,而CBA小鼠则未恢复。为了进一步阐明这些突触病变中不同表型背后的分子机制,我们比较了Bax/Bcl-2的比值与细胞色素C的表达,发现噪声暴露后CBA小鼠的活性增加。在全细胞膜片钳记录的内毛细胞中,我们在活性区周围进行双光子钙成像以评估钙清除率,发现CBA小鼠的钙清除率较慢。我们的结果表明,声学过度暴露导致的钙过度积累以及突触前带状结构周围的缓慢清除可能导致钙稳态破坏,继而引起内毛细胞的线粒体功能障碍,从而导致CBA小鼠对噪声诱导的耳蜗突触病变易感。