Story Summary:…The important questions were could we determine what the variant is and how does it exert its effect on hearing?In their studies of families with progressive hearing loss, the Spanish team had proposed that the gene responsible lay on human chromosome 7….The mutation – a change of a single letter of genetic code from A to T – in this tiny stretch of sequence is enough to lead to dramatic loss of hearing in these mice, explains Dr Morag Lewis, a Sanger Institute scientist, who found this mutation….All three sit in a vital region of seven letters in the mature sequence of miR96 says Dr Angeles Mencia, the Spanish team member who found the human mutations….Remarkably, then, cases of deafness in two different organisms are both tied to equivalent microRNAs and to the equivalent region within the microRNA – just seven letters that are known to be important for interacting with the messenger targets….Read the Full Story

Related posts:

1. Genetic Cause For Type Of Deafness Identified; Discovery Could Lead To New Therapies For Progressive Hearing Loss
2. Diminuendo — New mouse model for understanding cause of progressive hearing loss
3. Gene linked to a rare form of progressive hearing loss in males is identified
4. Medical News: MicroRNA Mutation Linked to Hearing Loss – in Neurology, General Neurology from MedPage Today
5. Researchers link microRNA gene to hearing loss | Wellcome Trust