The transcriptional landscape of the cultured murine middle ear epithelium in vitro
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Lynne Bingle; Apoorva Mulay; Miraj K. Chowdhury; Cameron James; Colin D. Bingle
- Source
- Biology Open, Vol 10, Iss 4 (2021)
Biology Open
article-version (VoR) Version of Record
- Subject
- Cell type
QH301-705.5
Science
Population
Cell
Ear, Middle
Biology
Epithelium
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Transcriptome
Mice
transcriptomics
Ciliogenesis
Gene expression
medicine
Animals
Biology (General)
education
Cells, Cultured
education.field_of_study
Gene Expression Profiling
Computational Biology
Epithelial Cells
Molecular Sequence Annotation
in vitro
otitis media
Cell biology
medicine.anatomical_structure
middle ear
Middle ear
Disease Susceptibility
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Biomarkers
Research Article
Genome-Wide Association Study
- Language
- ISSN
- 2046-6390
Otitis media (OM) is the most common paediatric disease and leads to significant morbidity. Although understanding of underlying disease mechanisms is hampered by complex pathophysiology, it is clear that epithelial abnormalities underpin the disease. The mechanisms underpinning epithelial remodelling in OM remain unclear. We recently described a novel in vitro model of mouse middle ear epithelial cells (mMEECs) that undergoes mucociliary differentiation into the varied epithelial cell populations seen in the middle ear cavity. We now describe genome wide gene expression profiles of mMEECs as they undergo differentiation. We compared the gene expression profiles of original (uncultured) middle ear cells, confluent cultures of undifferentiated cells and cells that had been differentiated for 7 days at an air liquid interface (ALI). >5000 genes were differentially expressed among the three groups of cells. Approximately 4000 genes were differentially expressed between the original cells and day 0 of ALI culture. The original cell population was shown to contain a mix of cell types, including contaminating inflammatory cells that were lost on culture. Approximately 500 genes were upregulated during ALI induced differentiation. These included some secretory genes and some enzymes but most were associated with the process of ciliogenesis. The data suggest that the in vitro model of differentiated murine middle ear epithelium exhibits a transcriptional profile consistent with the mucociliary epithelium seen within the middle ear. Knowledge of the transcriptional landscape of this epithelium will provide a basis for understanding the phenotypic changes seen in murine models of OM.
Summary: This paper presents a genome wide transcriptional analysis of murine middle ear epithelial cells as they undergo differentiation to a mucociliary phenotype representative of the native middle ear epithelium.