Original article SHIELD: an integrative gene expression database for inner ear research

The inner ear is a highly specialized mechanosensitive organ responsible for hearing and balance. Its small size and difficulty in harvesting sufficient tissue has hindered the pro-gress of molecular studies. The protein components of mechanotransduction, the mo-lecular biology of inner ear development and the genetic causes of many hereditary hearing and balance disorders remain largely unknown. Inner-ear gene expression data will help illuminate each of these areas. For over a decade, our laboratories and others have generated extensive sets of gene expression data for different cell types in the inner ear using various sample preparation methods and high-throughput genome-wide approaches. To facilitate the study of genes in the inner ear by efficient presentation of the accumulated data and to foster collaboration among investigators, we have de-veloped the Shared Harvard Inner Ear Laboratory Database (SHIELD), an integrated re-source that seeks to compile, organize and analyse the genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic knowledge of the inner ear. Five datasets are currently available. These data-sets are combined in a relational database that integrates experimental data and annota