However, in our own middle ear expression dataset from the same patients, all 12 genes were DEGs for cholesteatoma (Table 1): RTN4, RAB5A, CRYBG1, RGS22, HEPHL1, and SPTLC3 were upregulated, while APBB1IP, BHLHE41, ARID3A, C5AR1, CPT1B, and FAM227A were downregulated. Here, HEPHL1 is linked to cholesteatoma.