Linking transcriptomes with morphological and functional phenotypes in mammalian retinal ganglion cells
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE211038 | GEO | 2022/08/18
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Goals of the study: 1. Assess the gene expression profile in rat RGC after experimental IOP elevation to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of RGC death. 2. Identify potentially novel genes and pathways that may contribute to RGC death in glaucoma. Background: Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the slow, progressive degeneration of RGC. Elevated IOP is the biggest risk factor for developing glaucoma, loss of RGC and optic nerve atrophy. The pathophysiology of glaucomatous neurodegeneration is not fully understood. It is now clear that RGC die by apoptosis in glaucoma. However, what triggers the apoptosis is still unknown. So far, several gene expression studies have been performed on the retina as a whole. These studies revealed up and downregulation of many genes in response to elevated IOP and optic nerve transection. However, the retina is a complex tissue composed of neuronal, glial and vascular cell types. The RGCs only comprise 5% or less of retinal cells. The gene expression profiles from whole retina can not represent of RGC gene expression. In the current study, we sought to investigate the whole genome regulation of the RGCs in glaucoma. The study was carried out in 3 adult male Brown Norway rats with experimental glaucoma. An equal number of RGCs were captured from normal eyes and eyes with elevated IOP. Gene expression in the glaucomatous RGC was compared with that in the fellow RGC by using Affymetrix Gene chip.
2010-10-01 | E-GEOD-12596 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) form an array of feature detectors, which transmit visual information through segregated channels to central brain regions. Characterizing RGC diversity is required to understand the logic of this functional parcellation. Using single- cell transcriptomics, we systematically classified RGCs in adult and larval zebrafish, thereby identifying marker genes for >30 stable and several transient cell types, cell type-specific markers, and their maturational changes. We used this catalog to engineer transgenic driverreporter lines, enabling experimental genetic access to specific RGC types. Strikingly, expression of a few transcription factors often predicts dendrite morphological features, in particular and axonal projections to specific tectal layers and extratectal targets. Moreover, iIn vivo calcium imaging revealed that molecularly defined RGCs exhibit highly specific functional tuningphysiological properties. Finally, chemogenetic ablation of eomesa+ RGCs, which comprise three melanopsin-expressing types with a specific projections to thalamus, pretectum and one deep tectal layerpattern, selectively impaired a visual behavior, phototaxis. Our study establishes a framework and provides a resource for systematically studying the functional architecture of the visual system.
2020-11-30 | GSE152842 | GEO
Project description:Visual information is conveyed from the eye to the brain by distinct types of Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs). It is largely unknown how RGCs acquire their defining morphological and physiological features and connect to upstream and downstream synaptic partners. The three Brn3/Pou4f transcription factors (TFs) participate in the combinatorial code for RGC type specification but their exact molecular roles are still unclear. We use deep sequencing to define (i) transcriptomes of Brn3a and/or Brn3b positive RGCs, (ii) Brn3a and/or Brn3b dependent RGC transcripts and (iii) transcriptomes of retinorecipient areas of the brain at developmental stages relevant for axon guidance, dendrite formation and synaptogenesis. We reveal a combinatorial code of transcription factors, adhesion molecules and determinants of neuronal morphology that are differentially expressed in specific RGC populations and selectively regulated by Brn3a and/or Brn3b. This comprehensive molecular code provides a basis for understanding neuronal cell type specification in RGCs.
2017-04-24 | GSE87647 | GEO
Project description:The neuronal cell death results in neurodegenerative diseases. The extracellular environment plays a critical role in regulating cell viability. In this study, we explore how intercellular communication contributes to the survival of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) following the optic nerve crush (ONC). By performing single-cell RNA-seq on whole retinal cells, we observed transcriptomic responses in non-RGC retinal cells to the injury, with astrocytes and Müller glia having the most interactions with RGCs. By comparing the RGC subclasses showing distinct resilience cell death, we identified top 47 interactions that are stronger in the high-survival RGCs, likely representing neuroprotective interactions. We performed functional assays on one of the receptors, Mu-opioid receptor (Oprm1). Although Oprm1 is preferentially expressed in intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), its neuroprotective effect could be transferred to multiple RGC subclasses by specific overexpressing Oprm1 in pan-RGCs. Our study provides an atlas of cell-cell interactions in both intact and post-ONC retina and an effective strategy to predict molecular mechanisms in neuroprotection, underlying the principal role played by extracellular environment in supporting neuron survival.
2023-10-01 | GSE241268 | GEO
Project description:Since retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) do not regenerate after injury, RGC replacement therapy could provide an approach to vision restoration in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies. Here we developed a rapid protocol for direct induction of RGC (iRGC) differentiation from human iPSCs and ESCs in less than two weeks, by overexpression of NGN2 in RGC survival-promoting medium supplemented with a Notch inhibitor. Neuronal morphology and neurite growth were observed within one week of induction. Immunostaining and qRT-PCR for characteristic RGC-specific genes confirmed identity. Calcium imaging was used to evaluate iRGCs’ electrophysiologic maturation, and demonstrated GABA-induced excitatory calcium influx characteristic of immature RGCs. Using single cell-RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) we further delineated iRGCs’ differentiation and compared iRGC transcriptomic profiles to fetal human and retinal organoid-derived RGCs. Unbiased clustering showed high similarities of transcriptomic profiles among iRGCs, early-stage fetal human RGCs and early-stage retinal organoid-derived RGCs. However, for some markers, including BRN3a, BRN3b and NEFL, iRGCs demonstrated expression patterns more similar to fetal RGCs than to retinal organoid RGCs. After intravitreal injection into rodent eyes, transplanted iRGCs survived and migrated into host retinas where they were detected one week and one month after transplant. Prior optic nerve trauma to the recipient host did not significantly enhance or detract from iRGC integration, but iRGCs protected host RGCs from neurodegeneration. Taken together, these data demonstrate rapid iRGC generation in vitro into an immature cell with high similarity to human fetal RGCs and capacity for retinal integration after transplant, including after optic nerve injury. The simplicity of this system may benefit translational studies on human RGCs.
2022-04-10 | GSE200452 | GEO
Project description:In this work, we tested feasibility of high content screening of acutely isolated RGCs to generate systems biology knowledge of intrinsic cellular pathways associated with the onset of glaucomatous RGC loss in the retina. We performed differential profiling of these neurons using two complementary techniques: proteomics and microarray-based transcriptomics. The analysis of these RGC-specific proteomic and transcriptomic data using pathway informatics databases and biological network tools have revealed complex metabolic and regulatory changes in the COH-challenged neurons. We used the iTRAQ reagents that allow for the identification and quantitation of up to four different samples simultaneously, to assess the COH-induced changes in protein content of adult rat RGCs. Similar principle is utilized in the two-color Agilent arrays that we used for our transcriptomic analysis of the same RGC samples.
2009-08-20 | GSE15332 | GEO
Project description:Linking transcriptomes with morphological and functional phenotypes in mammalian retinal ganglion cells
| PRJNA868726 | ENA
Project description:Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are the projection neurons of the retina. Proper development of the axon and dendrite of RGCs is the basis for these cells to function as projection neurons to deliver visual information to the brain. The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of a newly identified RGC-specific gene, Shtn1, in neurite development in RGCs. Using IF, we demonstrated that SHTN1 is distinctively expressed in RGCs during the period in which RGCs actively develop and adjust the connections of their neurites with upstream and downstream neurons. Using the iRGC system, we demonstrated that Shtn1 promotes the growth and complexity of neurites, and thus the electrophysiological maturation, of iRGCs. RNA-Seq analyses showed that Shtn1 may also regulate gene expression and neurogenesis in iRGCs. These findings improve our understanding of the molecular machinery governing RGC neurite development, and may help to optimize future RGC regeneration methods.
2024-07-10 | GSE254839 | GEO
Project description:Neuronal types in the central nervous system differ dramatically in their resilience to injury or insults. Here we studied selective resilience in mouse retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) following optic nerve crush (ONC), which severs their axons and leads to death of ~80% of RGCs in 2 weeks. To identify expression programs associated with differential resilience, we first used single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) to generate a comprehensive molecular atlas of 45 RGC types in adult retina. We tracked their survival after ONC, characterized transcriptomic, morphological, and physiological changes that preceded degeneration, and identified genes selectively expressed by each type. Finally, loss- and gain-of-function assays in vivo showed that manipulating some of these genes improved neuronal survival and axon regeneration following ONC. This study provides a systematic framework for parsing type-specific responses to injury, and demonstrates that these responses can be used to reveal molecular targets for intervention.
2019-11-27 | GSE133382 | GEO
Project description:Goals of the study: 1. Assess the gene expression profile in rat RGC after experimental IOP elevation to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of RGC death. 2. Identify potentially novel genes and pathways that may contribute to RGC death in glaucoma. Background: Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the slow, progressive degeneration of RGC. Elevated IOP is the biggest risk factor for developing glaucoma, loss of RGC and optic nerve atrophy. The pathophysiology of glaucomatous neurodegeneration is not fully understood. It is now clear that RGC die by apoptosis in glaucoma. However, what triggers the apoptosis is still unknown. So far, several gene expression studies have been performed on the retina as a whole. These studies revealed up and downregulation of many genes in response to elevated IOP and optic nerve transection. However, the retina is a complex tissue composed of neuronal, glial and vascular cell types. The RGCs only comprise 5% or less of retinal cells. The gene expression profiles from whole retina can not represent of RGC gene expression. In the current study, we sought to investigate the whole genome regulation of the RGCs in glaucoma.
2010-10-01 | GSE12596 | GEO