Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 18 pp 7416—7441

Figure 5. ABR forward masking tuning curves and outer hair cell (OHC) patch clamp recordings in KI mice at 20 weeks. (A) Homozygous mice exhibited no significant ABR threshold elevation (P>0.05, two-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-test). Averaged ABR forward masking tuning curves of 11 kHz probe tone were also presented as a function of masker frequency. The averaged tip threshold of homozygous mice showed no significant difference compared to those of wild-type mice (P>0.05, Student’s unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction). The tail portions of the FMTC overlapped between the two genotype groups. Averaged audiograms from the same tested animals were provided for reference. (B) Significantly lower Q₁₀ values measured in homozygous mice compared with their wild-type counterparts (6.228 ± 0.3705 and 4.712 ± 0.3353, Mean ± SEM for wild-type and homozygotes, respectively, *P=0.0204, Student’s unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction). (C) Representative OHC NLC traces from 20 week-old wild-type and homozygous mice. (D–G) No significant difference was found between the Z value, V_pkCm, Q_max and C_lin of both genotypes (all P>0.05, Student’s unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction). (H) Normalized Prestin’s charge density Q_sp, derived from Q_max/C_lin, showing no difference between the two groups (P>0.05, Student’s unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction).