Outer hair cells isolation from postnatal Sprague–Dawley rats

Outer hair cells (OHCs) damage is a general phenomenon in clinical disorders such as noise-induced hearing loss and drug-induced hearing loss. In order to elucidate the mechanism underlying these disorders, OHCs – its diseased region needs to be deeply investigated. However, OHCs array on the basilar membrane which contains massive cells with different types. Therefore, to isolate OHCs from this huge population is significant for revealing its pathological and molecular changes during disease processing. In the present study, we tried to isolate OHCs from the commonly used animal model –Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. By separating outer hair cells from SD rats with different day ages, we found that 9 days after birth was a suitable time for the separation of the OHCs. At this time, the number of OHCs isolated from rats was large, and the cell morphology was typical of cylindrical shape. OHCs isolated using this method are histologically suitable and quantitatively adequate for molecular biological and electrophysiological analyses.