A single-cell RNA-seq analysis unravels the heterogeneity of primary cultured human corneal endothelial cells

Autor: Pere Català, Nathalie Groen, Vanessa L. S. LaPointe, Mor M. Dickman
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scientific Reports, Vol 13, Iss 1, Pp 1-14 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2045-2322
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36567-6
Popis: Abstract The cornea is a transparent and avascular tissue located in front of the eye. Its inner surface is lined by a monolayer of corneal endothelial cells (CECs), which maintain the cornea transparency. CECs remain arrested in a non-proliferative state and damage to these cells can compromise their function leading to corneal opacity. The primary culture of donor-derived CECs is a promising cell therapy. It confers the potential to treat multiple patients from a single donor, alleviating the global donor shortage. Nevertheless, this approach has limitations preventing its adoption, particularly culture protocols allow limited expansion of CECs and there is a lack of clear parameters to identify therapy-grade CECs. To address this limitation, a better understanding of the molecular changes arising from the primary culture of CECs is required. Using single-cell RNA sequencing on primary cultured CECs, we identify their variable transcriptomic fingerprint at the single cell level, provide a pseudo-temporal reconstruction of the changes arising from primary culture, and suggest markers to assess the quality of primary CEC cultures. This research depicts a deep transcriptomic understanding of the cellular heterogeneity arising from the primary expansion of CECs and sets the basis for further improvement of culture protocols and therapies.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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