Combination of pejvakin and LC3B for treating hearing losses

The balance between peroxisome biogenesis and degradation is crucial for redox cell homeostasis. The present invention is based on the findings that pejvakin is involved in the early and rapid selective autophagic degradation of peroxisome (pexophagy) in auditory hair cells subjected to sound overstimulation, by interacting with the autophagosome-associated protein MAP1LC3B. It is here demonstrated that it is possible to completely restore sound-induced pexophagy and to prevent oxidative stress in Pjvk-/- auditory hair cells by transducing in same the Pejvakin and MAP1LC3B proteins together. Thus, the present invention relates to compositions containing these two proteins, or gene vectors encoding same, as well as their therapeutic use for preventing and/or treating presbycusis, noise-induced hearing-loss or sudden sensorineural hearing loss or auditory damages induced by acoustic trauma or ototoxic substances, or hereditary hearing loss due to an altered expression level of Pejvakin or to an altered DFNB59 gene expression, in a subject in need thereof.