Figure 7. Gata3^fl/flotof‐cre ^+/− knockout mice exhibit a progressive hearing threshold loss.

A, ABR thresholds for click stimuli from control (gata3^fl/fl: white, 10–38 mice; 19–76 ears), heterozygous (gata3^+/flotof‐cre^+/−: blue, 9–19 mice; 18–37 ears in each data point) and targeted knockout (gata3^fl/flotof‐cre^{+/ −} red, 9–13 mice; 8–26 ears) mice younger than 1.7 months (left panel), between 1.7 and 2.3 months (middle panel) and older than 7 months (right panel). One‐way ANOVA was P < 0.0001 at all ages. B, ABR hearing threshold for noise stimuli in gata3^fl/fl (white), gata3^+/flotof‐cre^+/− (blue) and gata3^fl/flotof‐cre^{+/ −} (red) at the same ages as in panel A (one‐way ANOVA was P < 0.0001 at all ages). Number of mice and ears as in panels A. C, mean ABR thresholds for frequency‐specific pure tone stimulation in gata3^fl/fl (white circles, 10–38 mice; 4–64 ears), gata3^+/flotof‐cre^+/− (blue triangles, 9–19 mice; 5–35 ears) and gata3^fl/flotof‐cre^{+/ −}animals (red squares, 9–13 mice; 1–26 ears) were found to be significantly raised in knockout mice at all three ages tested (two‐way ANOVA: P < 0.0001 in all three panels). All values are shown as means ± SD.