Characterization of transcriptomes of human iPSC-derived retinal lineages

Retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells are two retinal cell types that are affected by the most prevalent retinal diseases leading to irreversible blindness, such as glaucoma affecting the former and age-related macular degeneration affecting the latter. One of the most promising approaches for the therapy of these diseases is via the autologous transplantation of RGC or RPE cells derived from the induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This emphasizes the importance of detailed characterization and understanding of the mechanisms of differentiation of iPSCs into retinal lineages on the genome-wide scale. Such information can be used to identify novel crucial regulators of differentiation, optimisation of differentiation protocols to make them more efficient and safe, identification of novel specific biomarker signatures of differentiated cells. In this study, we performed the genome-wide transcriptome analysis of terminally differentiated RGC and RPE lineages, as well as intermediate retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) of optic vesicles (OVs) derived from the human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). In our analysis we specifically focused on the classes of transcripts that encode regulators of gene expression, such as transcription factors, epigenetic factors, and components of signaling pathways.

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Chuang JH, Yarmishyn AA, Hwang DK, Hsu CC, Wang ML, Yang YP, Chien KH, Chiou SH, Peng CH, Chen SJ