Prevalence and Clinical Features of Autosomal Dominant and Recessive TMC1-Associated Hearing Loss.

Abstract TMC1 is a causative gene for both autosomal dominant non-syndromic hearing loss (DFNA36) and autosomal recessive non-syndromic hearing loss (DFNB7/11). To date, 125 pathogenic variants in TMC1 have been reported. Most of the TMC1 variants are responsible for autosomal recessive hearing loss, with only 7 variants reported as causative for DFNA36. Here we reported the prevalence of TMC1-associated hearing loss in a large non-syndromic hearing loss cohort of about 12,000 subjects. As a result, we identified 26 probands with TMC1-associated hearing loss and the estimated prevalence of TMC1-associated hearing loss in the Japanese hearing loss cohort to be 0.18% among all patients. Among the 26 probands with TMC1-associated hearing loss, 15 cases were identified from autosomal dominant hearing loss families. By using the audiometric data from the probands, family members and previously reported cases, we evaluated the hearing deterioration speed for DFNA36 patients. In addition, we performed haplotype analysis for 11 unrelated autosomal dominant hearing loss families carrying the same variant TMC1: NM_138691:c.1627G > A:p.D543N. The results clearly indicated that the same haplotype was present despite of families being unrelated, supporting the contention that this variant occurred by founder mutation.