Single Cell RNA Sequencing of the Adult Drosophila Eye Reveals Distinct Clusters and Novel Marker Genes for All Major Cell Types

Authors

Kelvin Yeung
Komal Kumar Bollepogu Raja
Yoon-Kyung Shim
Yumei Li
Rui Chen
Graeme Mardon

Publication Date

12-14-2022

Journal

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-022-04337-1

PMID

36517671

PMCID

PMC9751288

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

12-14-2022

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes

Keywords

Female, Male, Animals, Drosophila, Photoreceptor Cells, Invertebrate, Rhodopsin, Drosophila Proteins, Sequence Analysis, RNA, Transcriptomics, Data publication and archiving, Bioinformatics, Data acquisition

Abstract

The adult Drosophila eye is a powerful model system for phototransduction and neurodegeneration research. However, single cell resolution transcriptomic data are lacking for this tissue. We present single cell RNA-seq data on 1-day male and female, 3-day and 7-day old male adult eyes, covering early to mature adult eyes. All major cell types, including photoreceptors, cone and pigment cells in the adult eye were captured and identified. Our data sets identified novel cell type specific marker genes, some of which were validated in vivo. R7 and R8 photoreceptors form clusters that reflect their specific Rhodopsin expression and the specific Rhodopsin expression by each R7 and R8 cluster is the major determinant to their clustering. The transcriptomic data presented in this report will facilitate a deeper mechanistic understanding of the adult fly eye as a model system.