gms | German Medical Science

“RongChang Pig” is a strain of pigs which lived in SiChuan provice,China. The characters of the pigs are that whole body is white, but a Black eye socket, so the pig is also called “Panda pig”. During the long-term process of feeding and breeding, some pigs Generated mutants , the Black eye socket disappear , and the color of iris changed from brown to light blue . More importantly, the mutant homozygotes are deaf while the heterozygotes have normal hearing . Cochlea morphology showed that cochlear stria vascularis intermediate cells disappear, Reissner,s membrane collapsed in E85. Subsequently, the cochlear hair cell degentate ,first at hair bundle of hair cells , the basal and middle circle hair bundle fusioned and disappeared, but the cell body existed. As time goes on , the top of hair cells became to fusion, the cell body gradually disappeared. The vestibular organ was normal, except the saccule hair cell completely disappeared. Genetic screening results showed that, Mitf-M segment occurred A/G mutation, leading to Mitf-M expression disappeared. It is a very good model for human deafness and may be useful for experimental studies on novel therapeutic strategies .

Supported by: Grants from the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program) (#2011CBA01000)