Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series:; GSE9939: Gene expression data on human optic nerve head astrocytes in normal Caucasian and African americans; GSE9944: Gene expression data on human optic nerve head astrocytes in Caucasian and African americans with or without glaucoma Experiment Overall Design: Refer to individual Series
Project description:To determine whether optic nerve head astrocytes, a key cellular component of glaucomatous neuropathy, exhibit differential gene expression in primary culture of astrocytes from African American donors with or without glaucoma, compared to astrocytes from Caucasian American donors with or without glaucoma. Experiment Overall Design: We divided samples into four group: Caucasian American normal, Caucasian American with glaucoma, African American normal and African American with glaucoma. We analyzed data from Affymetrix Human Genome U133A 2.0 and U95 chips.
Project description:To determine whether optic nerve head astrocytes, a key cellular component of glaucomatous neuropathy, exhibit differential gene expression in primary culture of astrocytes from African American donors with or without glaucoma, compared to astrocytes from Caucasian American donors with or without glaucoma. Keywords: Gene expression profile
Project description:To determine whether optic nerve head astrocytes, a key cellular component of glaucomatous neuropathy, exhibit differential gene expression in primary culture of astrocytes from normal African American donors, compared to astrocytes from normal Caucasian American donors. All donors have no histories of eye disease, diabetes, or chronic CNS disease. Experiment Overall Design: We divided samples into two groups: normal Caucasian American and normal African American. We analyzed data from Affymetrix Human Genome Human Genome U133A and U133A 2.0 chips.
Project description:To determine whether optic nerve head astrocytes, a key cellular component of glaucomatous neuropathy, exhibit differential gene expression in primary culture of astrocytes from normal African American donors, compared to astrocytes from normal Caucasian American donors. All donors have no histories of eye disease, diabetes, or chronic CNS disease. Keywords: Gene expression profile
Project description:The optic nerve is an important tissue in glaucoma and the unmyelinated nerve head region remains an important site of many early neurodegenerative changes. In humans and mice, astrocytes constitute the major glial cell type in the region, and in glaucoma they become reactive, influencing the optic nerve head (ONH) microenvironment and disease outcome. To determine the response of ONH astrocytes in glaucoma, we studied their transcriptional response to an elevation in intraocular pressure (IOP) induced by the microbead occlusion model. We also assessed the response of astrocytes in the more distal myelinated optic nerve proper (ONP). In this experimental model, astrocytes of the optic nerve exhibited a region-specific and temporally distinct response: ONH astrocytes showed very few early transcriptional changes and ONP astrocytes demonstrated substantially larger changes over the course of the experiment.
Project description:A major risk factor for glaucomatous optic neuropathy is the level of intraocular pressure (IOP), which can lead to retinal ganglion cell axon injury and cell death. The optic nerve has a rostral unmyelinated portion at the optic nerve head followed by a caudal myelinated region. The unmyelinated region is differentially susceptible to IOP-induced damage in rodent models and in human glaucoma. While several studies have analyzed gene expression changes in the mouse optic nerve following optic nerve injury, few were designed to consider the regional gene expression differences that exist between these distinct areas. We performed bulk RNA-sequencing on the retina and on separately micro-dissected unmyelinated and myelinated optic nerve regions from naïve C57BL/6 mice, mice after optic nerve crush, and mice with microbead-induced experimental glaucoma (total = 36). Gene expression patterns in the naïve unmyelinated optic nerve showed significant enrichment of the Wnt, Hippo, PI3K-Akt, and transforming growth factor β pathways, as well as extracellular matrix–receptor and cell membrane signaling pathways, compared to the myelinated optic nerve and retina. Gene expression changes induced by both injuries were more extensive in the myelinated optic nerve than the unmyelinated region, and greater after nerve crush than glaucoma. Changes present three and fourteen days after injury largely subsided by six weeks. Gene markers of reactive astrocytes did not consistently differ between injury states. Overall, the transcriptomic phenotype of the mouse unmyelinated optic nerve was significantly different from immediately adjacent tissues, likely dominated by expression in astrocytes, whose junctional complexes are inherently important in responding to IOP elevation.
