Fig. 1

Expression and location of LRP1 in cochleae. a Schematic overview of the hearing system, consisting of the outer, middle and inner ears. The inner ear is divided into the cochlea and vestibular organ, which are in turn composed of the saccule, utricle and three semicircular canals. b Colloidin-embedded hematoxylin & eosin staining (CE-HE) image of the porcine cochlea. c Schematic representation of the microstructure in the black dotted rectangle in b. The cochlea consists of three and a half turns. It has 3 chambers called the scala media, which is filled with endolymph, and the scala tympani and scala vestibuli, both of which are filled with perilymph. d–g The BLB distribution in the mouse cochlea. d The spiral vessel in the BM (white arrow). e The blood vessel in the modiolus region (white arrow). f shows the capillaries in the SV. g shows the tight junctions between marginal cells. h Annotated gene expression in BBB, BLB (SGN and SV), hair cells (HC) and neuron cells (NEURON) from mRNA profiles. Red: all annotated genes. Green: membrane-related genes. Blue: filtered membrane-related genes. i VENN analysis showing the 1500 overlapping genes from the five groups. j GO annotation showing the cell components enriched among the 1500 overlapping genes annotated in i. k Heatmap showing the expression levels of all the genes from four GO subterms in j that were related to “protein localization to cell periphery”, “protein localization to plasma membrane”, “regulation of protein localization to membrane” and “receptor-mediated endocytosis. l VENN map showing 7 overlapping genes in the above four GO subterms in k, namely, Ap2m1, Dab2, Egfr, Lrp1, Cltc, Ldlrap1, and Akap5. m The expression levels of the 7 overlapping genes from l. n Western blot results showing that LRP1 was widely expressed in different parts of the pig and mouse cochleae. SV: stria vestibuli, OC: organ of Corti, V: Vestibular organ, SGN: spiral ganglion neurons. o–v The localization of LRP1 in the mouse cochlea. Tissue slices were stained with anti-LRP1 antibody. o–s Cross-sections and (t–v) whole-mount tissues of the C57BL/6J mouse cochlea. DAPI: blue; LRP1: green; phalloidin: yellow. Scale bars: d, e, f 50 µm, o 100 µm, others 10 µm.)