Prevention of noise- and drug-induced hearing loss with d-methionine

A number of otoprotective agents are currently being investigated. Various types of agents have been found in animal studies to protect against hearing loss induced by cisplatin, carboplatin, aminoglycosides, or noise exposure. For over a decade we have been investigating d-methionine (d-met) as an otoprotective agent. Studies in our laboratory and others around the world have documented d-met’s otoprotective action, in a variety of species, against a variety of ototoxic insults including cisplatin-, carboplatin-, aminoglycoside- and noise-induced auditory threshold elevations and cochlear hair cell loss. For cisplatin-induced ototoxicity, protection of the stria vascularis has also been documented. Further d-met has an excellent safety profile. d-Met may act as both a direct and indirect antioxidant. In this report, we provide the results of three experiments, expanding findings in d-met protection in three of our translational research areas: protection from platinum based chemotherapy-, aminoglycoside- and noise-induced hearing loss. These experiments demonstrate oral d-met protection against cisplatin-induced ototoxicity, d-met protection against amikacin-induced ototoxicity, and d-met rescue from permanent noise-induced hearing loss when d-met is initiated 1 h after noise exposure. These studies demonstrate some of the animal experiments needed as steps to translate a protective agent from bench to bedside.