Previous reports on TMIE demonstrated that loss of TMIE function resulted in deafness in fish, mice and humans, indicating the importance and conserved function of this gene among vertebrates (Mitchem et al., 2002; Naz et al., 2002; Cho et al., 2006; Shen et al., 2008; Gleason et al., 2009; Zhao et al., 2014). Here, TMIE is linked to deafness.