Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Baek, Moo-Jin
• Park, Hyun-Min
• Johnson, Justin M
• Altuntas, Cengiz Z
• Jane-wit, Daniel
• Jaini, Ritika
• Solares, C. Arturo
• Thomas, Dawn M
• Ball, Edward J
• Robertson, Nahid G
• Morton, Cynthia C
• Hughes, Gordon B
• Tuohy, Vincent K

Titel

Increased Frequencies of Cochlin-Specific T Cells in Patients with Autoimmune Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Ist Teil von

• Journal of Immunology, 2006-09, Vol.177 (6), p.4203-4210

Ort / Verlag

United States: Am Assoc Immnol

Erscheinungsjahr

2006

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Free E-Journal (出版社公開部分のみ）

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Autoimmune sensorineural hearing loss (ASNHL) is the most common cause of sudden hearing loss in adults. Although autoimmune etiopathogenic events have long been suspected in ASNHL, inner ear-specific Ags capable of targeting T cell autoreactivity have not been identified in ASNHL. In this study, we show by ELISPOT analysis that compared with normal hearing age- and sex-matched control subjects, ASNHL patients have significantly higher frequencies of circulating T cells producing either IFN-gamma (p = 0.0001) or IL-5 (p = 0.03) in response to recombinant human cochlin, the most abundant inner ear protein. In some patients, cochlin responsiveness involved both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells whereas other patients showed cochlin responsiveness confined to CD8+ T cells. ASNHL patients also showed significantly elevated cochlin-specific serum Ab titers compared with both normal hearing age- and sex-matched control subjects and patients with noise- and/or age-related hearing loss (p < 0.05 at all dilutions tested through 1/2048). Our study is the first to show T cell responsiveness to an inner ear-specific protein in ASNHL patients, and implicates cochlin as a prominent target Ag for mediating autoimmune inner ear inflammation and hearing loss.