干细胞治疗感音神经性耳聋

治疗内耳疾病的主要困难之一是找到耳蜗毛细胞或者螺旋神经元丢失所导致的听力损失的治疗方法。本文讨论使用干细胞替代感觉细胞丢失为目的的几个治疗策略。作者最近在成年内耳中发现了可以分化为毛细胞的干细胞，发现了胚胎干细胞可在体外转化为毛细胞并表达毛细胞标记物。在动物模型中，成年内耳干细胞、神经干细胞和胚胎干细胞来源的前体细胞可分化成为毛细胞和神经细胞。本文将讨论使用干细胞再生损伤毛细胞的不同方法，介绍几种可行的动物模型，并讨论发展基于干细胞的细胞替代疗法治疗内耳损伤中存在的困难。

Stem cells in therapy for hearing loss

One of the greastest challenges in treatment of inner ear disorders is to find a cure for heating impairment that is caused by loss of cochlear hair cells or spiral ganglion neurons. Here we discuss different starting points for the development of therapeutic strategies with focus on using stem cells to replace lost sensory cells. We have recently identified stem cells in the adult inner ear that gave rise to hair cells and we have shown that embryonic stem cells can be converted to cells that express hair cell markers in vitro. In animal models, hair cells and neural cell types can be generated by transplantation of progenitor cells derived from adult inner ear and neural stem cells as well as from embryonic stem cells. We discuss different approaches toward using stem cells to regenerate the damaged inner ear, we introduce potential animal models, and we point out potential obstacles that translational research has to overcome in the development of stem cell-based cell replacement therapies for the damaged inner ear.