In the five senses defined by Aristotle , the receptor genes that mediate the sense of smell, taste, vision and touch have been successively determined. Among them, scientists' research on five receptors has won the Nobel Prize for three times. The most recent time was the temperature and tactile receptors discovered by two American scientists in 2021. But it has always been a mystery which gene encodes the ion channel responsible for auditory transduction, the core of human perception of sound.
In 2020, Yan Zhiqiang and his collaborators finally confirmed the auditory transduction ion channel located in cochlear hair cells, providing an important basis for the determination of auditory receptors. Now, he and his team are continuing to work hard on this difficult problem.
This article is original from Translational Medicine Network. Please indicate the source for reprinting
Author: Jevin
Scientific research road smoothly
01
2000, when Yan Zhiqiang entered the college entrance examination for Fudan University , Chinese brain science research was just starting, lacking knowledge base and professional training.
When he was a sophomore, he recommended himself to the Institute of Neurobiology founded by Academician Yang Xiongli in Fudan University, and entered Professor Li Baoming's laboratory for research. During the summer vacation of my junior year, I went to the newly established Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences for internship through the recommendation of my teacher. With this "energy", he was exposed to the most cutting-edge scientific knowledge and professional training at that time.
In 2004, he went to the Institute of Neurology as an recommended student for a master's degree. A year later, he followed his supervisor Luo Minmin to another newly established innovative institution Beijing Institute of Life Sciences to conduct information transmission research on olfactory neurons. Research on the olfactory family of molecules in 2004 just won the Nobel Prize. During that time, Yan Zhiqiang proved for the first time that the olfactory bulb had accurate and specific two-sided connections, which was the first report at that time that proved that the forebrain had accurate and specific two-sided connections. In 2008, the relevant research was published in "Neuron".
Later, under the joint recommendation of Rao Yi , Luo Minmin and Wang Xiaodong, Yan Zhiqiang entered at the University of California, San Francisco and Zhan Yunong's laboratory as his wish as his postdoctoral fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
In 2013, Yan Zhiqiang's research on tactile conduction ion channel NompC was published in the top international scientific research journal Nature. His research as the first author was also included in the textbook "Principles of Neurobiology" written by Academician of the American Academy of Sciences and Professor of Stanford University, Luo Liqun .
returned home after graduation, Fudan set sail
02
2013, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Academician Jinli During the Fudan interview, telling the story of Mr. Tan Jiazhen who went to the United States to invite him back to his country despite his old age in order to promote the progress of domestic scientific research, in order to encourage Yan Zhiqiang to teach. Fudan directly "out of the rules" to give this postdoctoral researcher a doctoral supervisor position. The following year, Yan Zhiqiang was awarded the title of "Oriental Scholar" a distinguished professor at Shanghai universities.
In the next few years of scientific research results, Yan Zhiqiang did not disappoint Fudan and Shanghai's expectations for talents. In 2019, he collaborated with the team of Souyuki, a professor at the school and the team of Souji, a professor at the University of Tokyo, to confirm that the primary mechanical force-gated ion channel of hearing in which people feel sound vibrations, solving the problem that has plagued the auditory field for nearly 40 years. The relevant results were published on "Neuron" on the cover form.
Clear choices. Explore more than
03
Two years ago, Yan Zhiqiang "jumped" from , School of Life Sciences, Fudan University to Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, which is still in his new life. He lives in a commercial building, and his team is here to find the last puzzle of human perception of the world.
In fact, in terms of auditory research, Hungarian American scientist Georg von Bekesy has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1961 for discovering the cochlea of the auditory organ. But the discovery of auditory receptors has plagued scientists for decades.
Yan Zhiqiang said that this is because the hearing is the most complex and exquisite working mechanism among the five senses."The sense of smell and taste are chemical reactions, which are relatively simple. The combination of related receptors and chemical molecules can be proved by in vitro culture cell experiments. He said that hearing requires feeling mechanical force, and we must understand the molecular mechanism of converting this force into electrical signals." He explained, "Compared with touch, the electrical signals caused by sound vibration are more difficult to capture than the receptors caused by pressure, and also require a more sophisticated protein complex than the sense of touch. This is difficult to reconstruct or screen in in vitro cultured cells."
In the past few decades, auditory scientists have discovered that the TMC1 and TMC2 genes are very important for human and mouse hearing. These two genes have also been found in deaf patients, but it has not been clear whether they are gated "switches" for the human ear to feel the mechanical force of sound. Yan Zhiqiang and his collaborators' 2020 research provides a key evidence for this. However, he said that this only provides a basis for the determination of auditory receptors. These problems have not been completely solved yet.
He hopes to understand the code of organisms to perceive the outside world by further studying sensory receptors such as hearing, touch, sensation, and thirst. At the same time, my country has the largest number of people with hearing disabilities in the world, and hearing impairment affects about 27.8 million patients. He hopes to transform and implement relevant research results, study the pathogenic mechanism of deafness, develop genes and therapeutic drugs for diagnosing related diseases.
Reference materials:
https://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2022/10/487411.sshtm
Note: This article aims to introduce the progress of medical research and cannot be used as a reference for treatment plans. If you need health guidance, please go to a regular hospital for treatment.
Recommended·Live broadcast/Activity
1 October 21 14:00-17:30 Shanghai
Brain neurological disease diagnosis and drug development industry salon
1 November 01-02 09:00-17:30 Chongqing
First Southwest Single Cell Omics Technology Application Forum
1 November 25-27 09:00-17:30 Shanghai
The Fourth Shanghai International Cancer Conference
4
