Davis J G, Oberholtzer J C, Burns F R, Greene M I
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia 19104.
Science. 1995 Feb 17;267(5200):1031-4. doi: 10.1126/science.7863331.
Molecular biological studies of the mammalian inner ear have been limited by the relatively small size of the sensory endorgans contained within. The saccular otolithic organ in teleostian fish is structurally similar to its mammalian counterpart but can contain an order of magnitude more sensory cells. The prospect of the evolutionary conservation of proteins utilized in the vertebrate inner ear and the relative abundance of teleostian saccular sensory tissue made this an attractive system for molecular biological studies. A complementary DNA obtained by differential screening of a saccular complementary DNA library was identified that encodes an inner ear-specific collagen molecule.
哺乳动物内耳的分子生物学研究一直受到其内部感觉终器相对较小的限制。硬骨鱼的球囊耳石器官在结构上与其哺乳动物对应物相似，但可包含数量级更多的感觉细胞。脊椎动物内耳中使用的蛋白质具有进化保守性，且硬骨鱼球囊感觉组织相对丰富，这使得它成为分子生物学研究的一个有吸引力的系统。通过对球囊互补DNA文库进行差异筛选获得了一个互补DNA，它编码一种内耳特异性胶原分子。
