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Gene expression underlying enhanced, steroid-dependent auditory sensitivity of hair cell epithelium in a vocal fish

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Genomics, October 2015
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  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (53rd percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (55th percentile)

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Title
Gene expression underlying enhanced, steroid-dependent auditory sensitivity of hair cell epithelium in a vocal fish
Published in
BMC Genomics, October 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12864-015-1940-3
Pubmed ID
Authors

Daniel J. Fergus, Ni Y. Feng, Andrew H. Bass

Abstract

Successful animal communication depends on a receiver's ability to detect a sender's signal. Exemplars of adaptive sender-receiver coupling include acoustic communication, often important in the context of seasonal reproduction. During the reproductive summer season, both male and female midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus) exhibit similar increases in the steroid-dependent frequency sensitivity of the saccule, the main auditory division of the inner ear. This form of auditory plasticity enhances detection of the higher frequency components of the multi-harmonic, long-duration advertisement calls produced repetitively by males during summer nights of peak vocal and spawning activity. The molecular basis of this seasonal auditory plasticity has not been fully resolved. Here, we utilize an unbiased transcriptomic RNA sequencing approach to identify differentially expressed transcripts within the saccule's hair cell epithelium of reproductive summer and non-reproductive winter fish. We assembled 74,027 unique transcripts from our saccular epithelial sequence reads. Of these, 6.4 % and 3.0 % were upregulated in the reproductive and non-reproductive saccular epithelium, respectively. Gene ontology (GO) term enrichment analyses of the differentially expressed transcripts showed that the reproductive saccular epithelium was transcriptionally, translationally, and metabolically more active than the non-reproductive epithelium. Furthermore, the expression of a specific suite of candidate genes, including ion channels and components of steroid-signaling pathways, was upregulated in the reproductive compared to the non-reproductive saccular epithelium. We found reported auditory functions for 14 candidate genes upregulated in the reproductive midshipman saccular epithelium, 8 of which are enriched in mouse hair cells, validating their hair cell-specific functions across vertebrates. We identified a suite of differentially expressed genes belonging to neurotransmission and steroid-signaling pathways, consistent with previous work showing the importance of these characters in regulating hair cell auditory sensitivity in midshipman fish and, more broadly, vertebrates. The results were also consistent with auditory hair cells being generally more physiologically active when animals are in a reproductive state, a time of enhanced sensory-motor coupling between the auditory periphery and the upper harmonics of vocalizations. Together with several new candidate genes, our results identify discrete patterns of gene expression linked to frequency- and steroid-dependent plasticity of hair cell auditory sensitivity.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 30 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 1 3%
Germany 1 3%
Unknown 28 93%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 23%
Student > Bachelor 6 20%
Researcher 5 17%
Other 2 7%
Professor 2 7%
Other 6 20%
Unknown 2 7%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 9 30%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 5 17%
Neuroscience 4 13%
Engineering 3 10%
Unspecified 2 7%
Other 6 20%
Unknown 1 3%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 October 2015.
All research outputs
#14,350,149
of 24,980,180 outputs
Outputs from BMC Genomics
#4,869
of 11,129 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#131,045
of 285,310 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Genomics
#160
of 373 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,980,180 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 41st percentile – i.e., 41% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 11,129 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 54% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 285,310 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 53% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 373 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 55% of its contemporaries.