Publication Date
12-17-2019
Journal
Nature Communications
DOI
10.1038/s41467-019-12917-9
PMID
31848347
PMCID
PMC6917696
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
12-17-2019
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Published Open-Access
yes
Keywords
Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Cell Nucleus, Female, Frozen Sections, Gene Expression Profiling, Healthy Volunteers, Humans, Male, Photoreceptor Cells, RNA-Seq, Single-Cell Analysis, Bioinformatics, Gene expression analysis, Genetics, Gene expression, Sequencing
Abstract
Single-cell RNA-seq is a powerful tool in decoding the heterogeneity in complex tissues by generating transcriptomic profiles of the individual cell. Here, we report a single-nuclei RNA-seq (snRNA-seq) transcriptomic study on human retinal tissue, which is composed of multiple cell types with distinct functions. Six samples from three healthy donors are profiled and high-quality RNA-seq data is obtained for 5873 single nuclei. All major retinal cell types are observed and marker genes for each cell type are identified. The gene expression of the macular and peripheral retina is compared to each other at cell-type level. Furthermore, our dataset shows an improved power for prioritizing genes associated with human retinal diseases compared to both mouse single-cell RNA-seq and human bulk RNA-seq results. In conclusion, we demonstrate that obtaining single cell transcriptomes from human frozen tissues can provide insight missed by either human bulk RNA-seq or animal models.
Included in
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Commons, Biology Commons, Biomedical Informatics Commons, Genetic Phenomena Commons, Genetic Processes Commons, Medical Genetics Commons, Medical Specialties Commons
Comments
Associated Data