Unravelling the roles of lysine acetylation by Elp3 during inner ear development

Given the importance of acetylation homeostasis in controlling developmental processes, we planned to investigate its role in inner ear formation and focused our attention on Elp3 acetyl-transferase, a member of the Elongator complex recently implicated in neurogenesis.
We first analysed the spatio-temporal pattern of ELp3 mRNA expression and showed that it was expressed in the early otocyst at E11.5 and persisted later in the sensory epithelium of the cochlea, the spiral ganglion, the stria vascularis and the vestibule.
To unravel functions of Elp3 in the inner ear, we used conditional knock-out mice in which Elp3 gene is deleted from early otocyst (Elp3 cKO). We submitted these mice to a battery of vestibular testing and found significant abnormalities. Besides, the auditory brain stem response of Elp3 cKO indicated that these mice are severely deaf.
At the cellular level, we detected some defaults in the planar orientation of the auditory hair cell bundle. In addition, the length of the kinocilium was significantly reduced both in vestibular and cochlear hair cells from Elp3 cKO mice. We were also able to demonstrate an increased level of apoptosis in the Elp3 cKO spiral ganglion at E14.5 leading to a reduced number of fibers innervating the cochlear hair cells as well as a reduced number of their synaptic ribbons.
In conclusion, our results clearly show a role for Elp3 both in hearing and balance. We plan to go deeper in the mechanisms involved through the identification of the proteins that are targeted for acetylation by Elp3.