{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pgen.1010925","title":"β-Catenin transcriptional activity is required for establishment of inner pillar cell identity during cochlear development","abstract":"The mammalian cochlea is composed of sensory hair cells as well as multiple different types of non-sensory supporting cells. Pillar cells are one type of supporting cell that form the tunnel of Corti and include two morphologically and functionally distinct subtypes: inner pillar cells (IPCs) and outer pillar cells (OPCs). The processes of specification and differentiation of inner versus outer pillar cells are still unclear. Here, we show that β-Catenin is required for establishing IPC identity in the mammalian cochlea. To differentiate the transcriptional and adhesion roles of β-Catenin in establishing IPC identity, we examined two different models of β-Catenin deletion; one that deletes both transcriptional and structural functions and one which retains cell adhesion function but lacks transcriptional function. Here, we show that cochleae lacking β-Catenin transcriptional function lost IPCs and displayed extranumerary OPCs, indicating its requirement for establishing IPC identity. Overexpression of β-Catenin induced proliferation within IPCs but not ectopic IPCs. Single-cell transcriptomes of supporting cells lacking β-Catenin transcriptional function show a loss of the IPC and gain of OPC signatures. Finally, targeted deletion of β-Catenin in IPCs also led to the loss of IPC identity, indicating a cell autonomous role of β-Catenin in establishing IPC identity. As IPCs have the capacity to regenerate sensory hair cells in the postnatal cochlea, our results will aid in future IPC-based hair cell regeneration strategies.","journal":"PLoS Genetics","year":2023,"id":356687,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.955,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1105747,"name":"Ippei Kishimoto","orcid":"0000-0003-1442-7470","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":513434,"name":"Pooja Roy","orcid":"0009-0008-0727-1694","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":955819,"name":"Mohd Ali Abbas Zaidi","orcid":"0000-0002-5446-261X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":416429,"name":"Alan G. Cheng","orcid":"0000-0002-4702-8401","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":397045,"name":"Sung‐Ho Huh","orcid":"0000-0002-0545-1973","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":430098,"name":"Michael Ebeid","orcid":"0000-0003-1109-421X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":63,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:13:30.556819Z","pmid":"37639482","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}