In zebrafish lacking the prdm1a gene, the shape and structure of hair cells change in ways that match shifts in their gene activity. Panels (a) and (b) show hair cells labeled with a green fluorescent marker (pou4f3:EGFP) in normal fish and in prdm1a mutants. Credit: Sandler et al./Nature Communications
Vertebrate inner ear mechanosensory hair cells detect sound and balance (gravitational forces). Fish also have similar lateral line hair cells in their skin that detect water vibrations for orientation and predator avoidance.
Hair cells in the lateral line and ear of fish and other non-mammalian vertebrates regenerate readily after damage, but mammals lack this ability, causing hearing and balance problems. Experimental attempts at hair cell regeneration in mice have so far produced incompletely developed and immature hair cells.
Despite these differences in regenerative capacity, the gene regulatory networks that drive hair cell maturation during development are highly similar across vertebrates. In a paper published in Nature Communications in August 2025, Hearing Restoration Project member and Emerging Research Grants scientist Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D., and team show that the transcription factor prdm1a plays a key role in determining hair cell fate in the zebrafish lateral line. Mutating prdm1a respecifies lateral line hair cells into ear-like hair cells, changing both their structure and gene expression patterns.
Understanding how transcription factors control diverse hair cell fates in zebrafish is crucial for uncovering how the regeneration of different hair cell types might one day be achieved in the mammalian ear to restore hearing and balance.
This is adapted from the abstract for the paper, “Prdm1a drives a fate switch between hair cells of different mechanosensory organs,” published in Nature Communications in August 2025, Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D., is a member of Hearing Health Foundation’s Hearing Restoration Project (HRP), which helped fund this research. She is also a 2007 Emerging Research Grants scientist.
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With Thanksgiving here, we’re feeling especially grateful. Thank you, truly, for being part of our Hearing Health Foundation community, some of whom I was fortunate enough to meet over the summer and fall.