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Analysis of gene expression in the dog macular retina and supporting tissues: comparison with human macular gene expression profiles

ABSTRACT: Dogs are commonly used models of human inherited retinal disorders. Because the dog retina contains a macula-like region, dogs are susceptible to maculopathies with many shared genetic etiologies with humans. Human macular gene expression has been characterized and provides insight into the underlying basis of macular disease. We sought to compare macular gene expression profiles in dogs and humans and interrogate macular disease-associated genes for differential expression between macula and periphery. RNA sequencing was performed on 8mm samples of the dog macular region and superior peripheral region, sampling retina and retinal pigmented epithelium/choroid separately. Read sequences were mapped to CanFam3.1 and raw read counts were analyzed to determine significantly differentially expressed genes between macula and periphery within each tissue. A similar analytic pipeline was used with a published dataset of human samples to allow direct dog/human comparisons. Pathways and processes involved in significantly DEGs were identified using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery. Dogs and humans shared the extent and direction of macular retinal differential gene expression, with multiple shared biological pathways implicated in differential expression. There were fewer similarities between dog and human in the supporting tissues of the retina (the RPE, choroid, sclera). Many genes implicated in heritable retinal and macular disorders in both dogs and humans were differentially expressed between macula and periphery. Approximately 2/3 of genes associated with human age-related macular degeneration were differentially expressed in at least one human tissue, whereas approximately half were differentially expressed in at least one dog tissue. This work underpins the dog macular retinal region as analogous to the human macula in terms of differential gene expression. Whilst age-related maculopathy has not been described in dogs, evidence supports the study of aging of the macula and susceptibility to age-associated pathology in dogs.

ORGANISM(S): Canis lupus familiaris

PROVIDER: GSE227619 | GEO | 2024/07/25

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Proper spatial differentiation of retinal cell types is necessary for normal human vision. Many retinal diseases, such as Best disease and male germ cell associated kinase (MAK)-associated retinitis pigmentosa, preferentially affect distinct topographic regions of the retina. While much is known about the distribution of cell types in the retina, the distribution of molecular components across the posterior pole of the eye has not been well-studied. To investigate regional difference in molecular composition of ocular tissues, we assessed differential gene expression across the temporal, macular, and nasal retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)/choroid of human eyes using RNA-Seq. RNA from temporal, macular, and nasal retina and RPE/choroid from four human donor eyes was extracted, poly-A selected, fragmented, and sequenced as 100 bp read pairs. Digital read files were mapped to the human genome and analyzed for differential expression using the Tuxedo software suite. Retina and RPE/choroid samples were clearly distinguishable at the transcriptome level. Numerous transcription factors were differentially expressed between regions of the retina and RPE/choroid. Photoreceptor-specific genes were enriched in the peripheral samples, while ganglion cell and amacrine cell genes were enriched in the macula. Within the RPE/choroid, RPE-specific genes were upregulated at the periphery while endothelium associated genes were upregulated in the macula. Consistent with previous studies, BEST1 expression was lower in macular than extramacular regions. The MAK gene was expressed at lower levels in macula than in extramacular regions, but did not exhibit a significant difference between nasal and temporal retina. The regional molecular distinction is greatest between macula and periphery and decreases between different peripheral regions within a tissue. Datasets such as these can be used to prioritize candidate genes for possible involvement in retinal diseases with regional phenotypes. Reprinted from <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=25446321">Whitmore, S.S., Wagner, A.H., DeLuca, A.P., Drack, A.V., Stone, E.M., Tucker, B.A., Zeng, S., Braun, T.A., Mullins, R.F., Scheetz, T.E., 2014. Transcriptomic analysis across nasal, temporal, and macular regions of human neural retina and RPE/choroid by RNA-Seq. Experimental Eye Research</a>. Used under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported </a>license. Additional RNA sequencing was performed on temporal, macular, nasal, inferior, and superior retina from a fifth subject and is included in this dataset. See original publication for details.

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Analysis of gene expression in the dog macular retina and supporting tissues: comparison with human macular gene expression profiles

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