The genetic contribution of the X chromosome in age-related hearing loss.

Age-related (AR) hearing loss (HL) is the most common sensory impairment with heritability of 55%. The aim of this study was to identify genetic variants on chromosome X associated with ARHL through the analysis of data obtained from the UK Biobank. We performed association analysis between self-reported measures of HL and genotyped and imputed variants on chromosome X from ∼460,000 white Europeans. We identified three loci associated with ARHL with a genome-wide significance level (p < 5 × 10), (rs186256023, = 4.9 × 10) and (rs4370706, = 2.3 × 10) in combined analysis of males and females, and (rs138497700, = 8.9 × 10) in the sex-stratified analysis of males. mRNA expression analysis showed and are expressed in mice and adult human inner ear tissues, particularly in the inner hair cells. We estimated that only a small amount of variation of ARHL, 0.4%, is explained by variants on the X chromosome. This study suggests that although there are likely a few genes contributing to ARHL on the X chromosome, the role that the X chromosome plays in the etiology of ARHL may be limited.