Single-Cell RNA Sequencing of Retina:New Looks for Gene Marker and Old Diseases

Peixi Ying; Chang Huang; Yan Wang; Xi Guo; Yuchen Cao; Yuxi Zhang; Sheng Fu; Lin Chen; Guoguo Yi; Min Fu

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2021.699906

Single-Cell RNA Sequencing of Retina:New Looks for Gene Marker and Old Diseases

Front Mol Biosci. 2021 Jul 30:8:699906. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2021.699906. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Peixi Ying¹, Chang Huang^{2

3

4

5}, Yan Wang⁶, Xi Guo⁷, Yuchen Cao¹, Yuxi Zhang¹, Sheng Fu⁸, Lin Chen⁹, Guoguo Yi¹⁰, Min Fu¹¹

Affiliations

¹ The Second Clinical School, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
² Eye Institute and Department of Ophthalmology, Eye & ENT Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
³ NHC Key Laboratory of Myopia, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Myopia, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Visual Impairment and Restoration, Shanghai, China.
⁶ Department of Ophthalmology, South China Hospital, Health Science Center, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
⁷ Medical College of Rehabiliation, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
⁸ The University of South China, Hengyang, China.
⁹ Department of Anesthesiology, Shenzhen Hospital, Southern Medical University, Shenzhen, China.
¹⁰ Department of Ophthalmology, the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
¹¹ Department of Ophthalmology, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

The retina is composed of 11 types of cells, including neurons, glial cells and vascular bed cells. It contains five types of neurons, each with specific physiological, morphological, and molecular definitions. Currently, single-cell RNA sequencing (sRNA-seq) is emerging as one of the most powerful tools to reveal the complexity of the retina. The continuous discovery of retina-related gene targets plays an important role in helping us understand the nature of diseases. The revelation of new cell subpopulations can focus the occurrence and development of diseases on specific biological activities of specific cells. In addition, sRNA-seq performs high-throughput sequencing analysis of epigenetics, transcriptome and genome at the single-cell level, with the advantages of high-throughput and high-resolution. In this paper, we systematically review the development history of sRNA-seq technology, and summarize the new subtypes of retinal cells and some specific gene markers discovered by this technology. The progress in the diagnosis of retinal related diseases is also discussed.

Keywords: ScRNA-seq; gene; retina; retinal disease; single-cell RNA sequencing.

Publication types

Review