Gene discovery in the auditory system using a tissue specific approach

Molecular methods applied to the study of hereditary hearing loss in the past decade have revealed a copious number of genes representing a great diversity of cellular functions. In some instances, identification of these genes involved in deafness disorders has provided the portal to investigations of pathways not previously envisioned to underlie human hearing. Sequence analysis of a human fetal cochlear cDNA library has been employed to generate thousands of ESTs (expressed sequence tags) that provide a transcript map of the human cochlea and are a resource of candidate genes for positional cloning endeavors.