PMID: 11324318Apr 28, 2001Paper

Regenerative potential in the organ of Corti after otic intoxication

Journal de la Société de biologie
M LenoirP Vago

Abstract

The auditory sensory cells are sensitive to a variety of influences such as noise, ototoxic drugs and aging. In the cochlea of mammals, the destroyed sensory cells are not replaced by new sensory cells. That leads to cochlear deafness, a frequent disease in human. Unfortunately, such auditory impairment is out of reach of treatment. The development of new therapeutic strategies in this field requires a precise knowledge of the mechanisms involved in auditory sensory cells disappearance and in organ of Corti's degeneration. The aim of our study was to characterize cellular and molecular changes in the cochlea of rats which had been intoxicated with the ototoxic antibiotic amikacin. The animals were sacrificed at different survival times during and after the antibiotic treatment and their cochleas were investigated using transmission and scanning electron microscopy and using confocal microscopy after tissue labellings with different fluorescent probes. The results revealed the existence of three periods. The first one corresponds to the disappearance of the sensory cells which die by apoptosis. During the second period, the organ of Corti undergoes a scarring process; concomitantly, a contingent of nonsensory supporting cells at...Continue Reading

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Apoptosis

Apoptosis is a specific process that leads to programmed cell death through the activation of an evolutionary conserved intracellular pathway leading to pathognomic cellular changes distinct from cellular necrosis