Vol.103 No.1 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 103 No. 1 January 2010
A Study on the Pathophysiology and Developing the Treatment of Sensorineural
Hearing Loss Using iPS Cells
Shin-ichiro Kitajiri and Juichi Ito
(Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine)
Treatment options for sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) are very limited, and most of the patients cannot be cured. The pathophysiology of SNHL is poorly understood because the biopsy of the human inner ear is impossible. This is one of the major reasons why development of a treatment strategy for SNHL is difficult. iPS cells from hereditary deafness patients have the potential to differentiate into inner ear cell under experimental conditions, and their phenotypes are expected to reveal the pathophysiology of SNHL. These iPS-derived cells with deafness mutations can also be applied to screening for the development of a treatment approach to rescue the phenotype.
Key words :sensorineural hearing loss, iPS cells, hereditary deafness