Single-Nuclei RNA-Seq on Human Retinal Tissue Provides Improved Transcriptome Profiling
ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12917-9 OPEN Single-nuclei RNA-seq on human retinal tissue provides improved transcriptome profiling Qingnan Liang 1,2,3,9, Rachayata Dharmat1,2,8,9, Leah Owen4, Akbar Shakoor4, Yumei Li1, Sangbae Kim1, Albert Vitale4, Ivana Kim4, Denise Morgan4,5, Shaoheng Liang 6, Nathaniel Wu1, Ken Chen 6, Margaret M. DeAngelis4,5,7* & Rui Chen1,2,3* Single-cell RNA-seq is a powerful tool in decoding the heterogeneity in complex tissues by 1234567890():,; 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 mul- tiple 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 dis- eases 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. 1 HGSC, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA. 2 Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston 77030 TX, USA. 3 Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
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