Novel compounds protect auditory hair cells against gentamycin-induced apoptosis by maintaining the expression level of H3K4me2

Abstract

Aminoglycoside-induced hair cell (HC) loss is a major cause of hearing impairment, and the effective prevention of HC loss remains an unmet medical need. Epigenetic mechanisms have been reported to be involved in protecting cochlear cells against ototoxic drug injury, and in this study we developed new bioactive compounds that have similar chemical structures as the epigenetics-related lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) inhibitors. LSD1 inhibitors have been reported to protect cochlear cells by preventing demethylation of dimethylated histone H3K4 (H3K4me2). To determine whether these new compounds exert similar protective effects on HCs, we treated mouse cochlear explant cultures with the new compounds together with gentamycin. There was a severe loss of HCs in the organ of Corti after gentamycin exposure, while co-treatment with the new compounds significantly protected against gentamycin-induced HC loss. H3K4me2 levels in the nuclei of HCs decreased after exposure to gentamycin, but H3K4me2 levels were maintained in the presence of the new compounds. Apoptosis is also involved in the injury process, and the new compounds protected the inner ear HCs against apoptosis by reducing caspase-3 activation. Together, our findings demonstrate that our new compounds prevent gentamycin-induced HC loss by preventing the demethylation of H3K4me2 and by inhibiting apoptosis, and these results might provide the theoretical basis for novel drug development for hearing protection.

Keywords:

• Apoptosis
• gentamycin
• H3K4me2
• hair cell
• compounds

Disclosure statement

The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exists.

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by the National Key R&D Program of China [Nos. 2017YFA0103900, 2016YFC0905200, 2015CB965000], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Nos. 81620108005, 81570913, 81500801, 81622013, 81470692 31500852], the Pujiang Talents Plan from the Shanghai Municipal Committee of Science and Technology, the Natural Science Foundation from Jiangsu Province [BK20150022], the Nanjing Medical Science and Technique Development Foundation [YKK17064], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH, and the Yingdong Huo Education Foundation.