Abstract
To assess the transcriptomic profile of disease-specific cell populations, fibroblasts from patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) were reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) before being differentiated into retinal organoids and compared with those from healthy individuals. We performed single-cell RNA sequencing of a total of 247,520 cells and identified cluster-specific molecular signatures. Comparing the gene expression profile between cases and controls, we identified novel genetic associations for this blinding disease. Expression quantitative trait mapping identified a total of 4,443 significant loci across all cell types, 312 of which are specific to the retinal ganglion cell subpopulations, which ultimately degenerate in POAG. Transcriptome-wide association analysis identified genes at loci previously associated with POAG, and analysis, conditional on disease status, implicated 97 statistically significant retinal ganglion cell-specific expression quantitative trait loci. This work highlights the power of large-scale iPSC studies to uncover context-specific profiles for a genetically complex disease.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 100142 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-14, e1-e5 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Cell Genomics |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 8 Jun 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright the Author(s) 2022. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Keywords
- eQTL
- glaucoma
- human induced pluripotent stem cells
- retinal ganglion cells
- retinal organoids
- single-cell RNA sequencing
- transcriptomics