The Novel Mouse Mutation Oblivion Inactivates the PMCA2 Pump and Causes Progressive Hearing Loss

Progressive hearing loss is common in the human population, but we have few clues to the molecular basis. Mouse mutants with progressive hearing loss offer valuable insights, and ENU (N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea) mutagenesis is a useful way of generating models. We have characterised a new ENU-induced mouse mutant, Oblivion (allele symbol Obl), showing semi-dominant inheritance of hearing impairment. Obl/+ mutants showed increasing hearing impairment from post-natal day (P)20 to P90, and loss of auditory function was followed by a corresponding base to apex progression of hair cell degeneration. Obl/Obl mutants were small, showed severe vestibular dysfunction by 2 weeks of age, and were completely deaf from birth; sensory hair cells were completely degenerate in the basal turn of the cochlea, although hair cells appeared normal in the apex. We mapped the mutation to Chromosome 6. Mutation analysis of Atp2b2 showed a missense mutation (2630C→T) in exon 15, causing a serine to phenylalanine substitution (S877F) in transmembrane domain 6 of the PMCA2 pump, the resident Ca2+ pump of hair cell stereocilia. Transmembrane domain mutations in these pumps generally are believed to be incompatible with normal targeting of the protein to the plasma membrane. However, analyses of hair cells in cultured utricular maculae of Obl/Obl mice and of the mutant Obl pump in model cells showed that the protein was correctly targeted to the plasma membrane. Biochemical and biophysical characterisation showed that the pump had lost a significant portion of its non-stimulated Ca2+ exporting ability. These findings can explain the progressive loss of auditory function, and indicate the limits in our ability to predict mechanism from sequence alone

Classroom-Based Science Research at the Introductory Level: Changes in Career Choices and Attitude

Our study, focused on classroom-based research at the introductory level and using the Phage Genomics course as the model, shows evidence that first-year students doing research learn the process of science as well as how scientists practice science. A preliminary but notable outcome of our work, which is based on a small sample, is the change in student interest in considering different career choices such as graduate education and science in general. This is particularly notable, as previous research has described research internships as clarifying or confirming rather than changing undergraduates’ decisions to pursue graduate education. We hypothesize that our results differ from previous studies of the impact of engaging in research because the students in our study are still in the early stages of their undergraduate careers. Our work builds upon the classroom-based research movement and should be viewed as encouraging to the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education movement advocated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, and other undergraduate education stakeholders

PMCA2w/a Splice Variant: A Key Regulator of Hair Cell Mechano-transduction Machinery

Sensory hair cells of the inner ear detect sound stimuli, inertial or gravi- tational forces. These mechanical inputs cause de\ufb02ection of the cell stereociliary bundle and activate a small number of cation-selective mechano-transduction (MET) channels that admit K+ and Ca2+ ions into the cytoplasm. Stereociliary Ca2+ levels are homeostatically regulated by an unusual splicing isoform (w/a) of plasma membrane calcium-pump isoform 2 (PMCA2w/a), ablation or missense mutations of which cause deafness and loss of balance in humans and mice. At variance with other PMCA2 isoforms, PMCA2w/a expressed in CHO transfectants increases only marginally its activity in response to a rapid increase of the cytoplasmic free Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]c). In this expression system, deafness-related mutations of PMCA2w/a decrease the pump ability to extrude Ca2+ both at steady state and in response to a [Ca2+]c rise. Consistent with these \ufb01ndings, mouse strains in which the pump is genetically ablated or mutated show hearing impairment correlated with defects in homeostatic regulation of stereociliary Ca2+, decreased sensitivity of the MET channels to hair bundle displacement, and morphological abnormalities in the organ of Corti. These results highlight a critical role played by PMCA2w/a in the control of hair cell function and survival and provide mechanistic insight into the etiology of deafness and vestibular disorders