SLC26A4 and hearing loss disorder: Among a plethora of deafness genes discovered in the past decade (The Hereditary Hearing Loss Homepage, http://hereditaryhearingloss.org/), mutations in certain genes, such as GJB2 (or Cx26) (MIM *121011), SLC26A4 (or PDS) (MIM *605646), and the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene (or MTRNR1) (MIM *561000) have been shown to be much more prevalent than other genes [13].