ASCL1 induces neurogenesis in human Muller glia
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens
PROVIDER: GSE246169 | GEO | 2023/10/30
REPOSITORIES: GEO
Similar Datasets
Project description:Neurodegeneration in the retina of mammals causes permanent loss of vision, due to their lack of regeneration. Some non-mammalian vertebrates show robust regeneration, via the Muller glia (MG), and we have recently made significant progress in stimulating adult mouse MG to regenerate functional neurons by transgenic expression of the proneural transcription factor Ascl1. While these results showed that MG can serve as an endogenous source of neuronal replacement, the efficacy of this process is limited. We designed a small molecule screen using sci-Plex, a method to multiplex up to thousands of single nucleus RNA-seq conditions into a single experiment, to screen a library of 92 compounds, identified, and validated two that promote neurogenesis in vivo. Our results demonstrate that high-throughput single-cell molecular profiling can substantially improve the discovery process for molecules and pathways that can stimulate neural regeneration and further demonstrate the potential for this approach to restore vision in patients with retinal disease.
2024-01-15 | GSE239731 | GEO
Project description:Many neurodegenerative diseases cause degeneration of specific types of neurons. For example, glaucoma leads to death of retinal ganglion cells, leaving other neurons intact. Neurons are not regenerated in the adult mammalian central nervous system. However, in non-mammalian vertebrates, glial cells spontaneously reprogram into neural progenitors and replace neurons after injury. We have recently developed strategies to stimulate regeneration of functional neurons in the adult mouse retina by overexpressing the proneural factor Ascl1 in Müller glia. In this report, we test additional transcription factors (TFs) for their ability to direct regeneration to particular types of retinal neurons. We engineered mice to express different combinations of TFs in MG, including Ascl1, Pou4f2, Islet1 and Atoh1. Using IHC, scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq, and electrophysiology we find retinal ganglion-like cells can be regenerated in the damaged adult mouse retina in vivo with targeted overexpression of developmental RGC-transcription factors.
2022-09-15 | GSE211077 | GEO
Project description:Diseases and damage to the retina lead to losses in retinal neurons and eventual visual impairment. Although the mammalian retina has no inherent regenerative capabilities, fish have robust regeneration from Müller glia (MG). Recently, we have shown that driving expression of Ascl1 in adult mouse MG stimulates neurogenesis similar to fish regeneration. The regeneration observed in the mouse is limited in the variety of neurons that can be derived from MG; Ascl1-expressing MG primarily generate bipolar cells. To better understand the limits of MG-based regeneration in mouse retinas, we used ATAC- and RNA-seq to compare newborn progenitors with MG. Our analysis demonstrated striking similarities between MG and progenitors, with losses in regulatory motifs for neurogenesis genes. Young MG were found to have intermediate expression profiles and accessible DNA, which is mirrored in the ability of Ascl1 to direct bipolar neurogenesis in young MG. When comparing what makes bipolar and photoreceptor cells distinct from glial cells, we find that bipolar-specific accessible regions are more frequently linked to bHLH motifs and Ascl1 binding, indicating that Ascl1 preferentially binds to bipolar regions. Overall, our analysis indicates a loss of neurogenic gene expression and motif accessibility during glial maturation that may prevent efficient reprogramming.
2020-08-19 | GSE137318 | GEO
Project description:Many retinal diseases lead to the loss of retinal neurons and cause visual impairment. The adult mammalian retina has little capacity for regeneration. By contrast, teleost fish functionally regenerate their retina following injury, and Müller glia (MG) are the source of regenerated neurons. The proneural transcription factor Ascl1 is upregulated in MG after retinal damage in zebrafish and is necessary for regeneration. Although Ascl1 is not expressed in mammalian MG after injury, forced expression of Ascl1 in mouse MG induces a neurogenic state in vitro and in vivo after NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate) damage in young mice. However, by postnatal day 16, mouse MG lose neurogenic capacity, despite Ascl1 overexpression. Loss of neurogenic capacity in mature MG is accompanied by reduced chromatin accessibility, suggesting that epigenetic factors limit regeneration. Here we show that MG-specific overexpression of Ascl1, together with a histone deacetylase inhibitor, enables adult mice to generate neurons from MG after retinal injury. The MG-derived neurons express markers of inner retinal neurons, synapse with host retinal neurons, and respond to light. Using an assay for transposase-accessible chromatin with high-throughput sequencing (ATAC-seq), we show that the histone deacetylase inhibitor promotes accessibility at key gene loci in the MG, and allows more effective reprogramming. Our results thus provide a new approach for the treatment of blinding retinal diseases.
2021-01-10 | GSE164489 | GEO
Project description:The retina is often subjected to tractional forces in a variety of conditions, for instance, pathological myopia, proliferative vitreoretinopathy. As the predominant glial element in the sensory retina, Muller cells are responsible for the homeostatic and metabolic support of retinal neurons and active players in virtually all forms of retinal injury and disease. Besides, Muller cells span the entire retinal thickness, extending from the inner to the outer limiting membranes, with cell bodies located in the inner nuclear layer and lateral processes expanding into the plexiform layers of the tissue. Because of this unique morphology, Muller cells can sense even minute changes in the retinal structure because of the mechanical stretching of their long processes or side branches. Thus, itM-bM-^@M-^Ys reasonable to infer that Muller cells also participate in ocular diseases when the retina is overstretched. In this study, we aim to investigate the whole genome regulation of Muller cells under mechanical stretching, which may help in excluding possible molecular mechanisms that would account for many retinal diseases in which the retina is often subjected to mechanical forces. We used microarrays to identify patterns of gene expression changes induced by cyclic mechanical stretching in Muller cells. Rat Muller cells were seeded onto flexible bottom culture plates and subjected to a cyclic stretching regimen of 15% equibiaxial stretching for 1 and 24 h.Muller cells cultured under the same conditions but with no applied mechanical strain were considered as the unstretched control. At each time points (1 and 24 h), three totally independent experiments (3 stretched samples and 3 control samples) were conducted. Muller cells were selected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. Stretch (S); Control (C)
2013-01-16 | E-GEOD-43516 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:The retina is often subjected to tractional forces in a variety of conditions, for instance, pathological myopia, proliferative vitreoretinopathy. As the predominant glial element in the sensory retina, Muller cells are responsible for the homeostatic and metabolic support of retinal neurons and active players in virtually all forms of retinal injury and disease. Besides, Muller cells span the entire retinal thickness, extending from the inner to the outer limiting membranes, with cell bodies located in the inner nuclear layer and lateral processes expanding into the plexiform layers of the tissue. Because of this unique morphology, Muller cells can sense even minute changes in the retinal structure because of the mechanical stretching of their long processes or side branches. Thus, it’s reasonable to infer that Muller cells also participate in ocular diseases when the retina is overstretched. In this study, we aim to investigate the whole genome regulation of Muller cells under mechanical stretching, which may help in excluding possible molecular mechanisms that would account for many retinal diseases in which the retina is often subjected to mechanical forces. We used microarrays to identify patterns of gene expression changes induced by cyclic mechanical stretching in Muller cells.
2013-01-16 | GSE43516 | GEO
Project description:Regenerative neuroscience aims to stimulate endogenous repair mechanisms in the nervous system to replace neurons that have been lost from degenerative diseases or trauma. In the retina, many non-mammalian vertebrate species spontaneously regenerate retinal neurons from glial cells, through an injury-induced reprogramming of the cells to a retinal progenitor state. Recently, we have reported that engineering mouse Muller glia to express a retinal progenitor gene, the proneural transcription factor, Ascl1, is sufficient to stimulate neurogenesis in the glia to generate functional neurons. However, this process is inefficient and only a third of the Ascl1-expressing glia generate new neurons. Here we test whether proneural transcription factors of the Atoh1/7 class can further promote the neurogenic capacity of MG. We report that the combination of Ascl1:Atoh1 is remarkably efficient at stimulating neurogenesis (>80% expressing cells), even in the absence of retinal injury or TSA. We use electrophysiology and scRNA-seq to demonstrate that Ascl1:Atoh1 generates a diversity of retinal neuron types with the majority expressing characteristics of retinal ganglion cells. Overall, our results provide a proof-of-principle that transcription factors that are normally sequentially active in cell fate specification, can when combined, substantially improve glial reprogramming to neurons and expand the repertoire of cell fates that can be regenerated in the adult mouse retina. The ability to stimulate the neurogenic potential of glia in adult mice with high efficiency is a key step towards translation of this approach to repair the central nervous system.
2021-10-19 | GSE184286 | GEO
Project description:The study was aimed at comparing the transcriptome of MG cells of the retina with the progenitors derived from them after an injury. This information will help in the identification of factors that are responsible for the retinal regeneration. Muller glia were isolated by fluorescent activated cell sorting (FACS) using uninjured retinas from transgenice zebrafish (gfap:gfp) where green florescent protein (GFP) is under the control of the glial fibrillary acidic protein (gfap) promoter. MG-derived retinal progenitors were isolated by FACS at 4 days post retinal injury from 1016 tuba1a:gfp transgenic fish where GFP is driven by the tuba1a promoter which is specifically activated in these progenitors. Total RNA was isolated from these cell populations and subjected to microarray analysis to compare their transcriptomes. Samples were prepared in duplicate.
2012-08-09 | E-GEOD-36191 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Following acute retinal damage, zebrafish possess the ability to regenerate all neuronal subtypes. This regeneration requires Müller glia (MG) to reprogram and divide asymmetrically to produce a multipotent Müller glia-derived neuronal progenitor cell (MGPC). This raises three key questions. First, does loss of different retinal cell subtypes induce unique MG regeneration responses? Second, do MG reprogram to a developmental retinal progenitor cell state? And finally, to what extent does regeneration recapitulate retinal development? We examined these questions by performing single-nuclear and single-cell RNA-Seq and ATAC-Seq in both developing and regenerating retinas. While MG reprogram to a state similar to late-stage retinal progenitors in developing retinas, there are transcriptional differences between reprogrammed MG/MGPCs and late progenitors, as well as reprogrammed MG in outer and inner retinal damage models. Validation of candidate genes confirmed that loss of different subtypes induces differences in transcription factor gene expression and regeneration outcomes. This work identifies major differences between gene regulatory networks activated following the selective loss of different subtypes of retina neurons, as well as between retinal regeneration and development.
2023-08-31 | GSE239410 | GEO
Project description:Müller glial cells (MG) generate retinal progenitor (RPC)-like cells after injury in non-mammalian species, though this does not occur in the mammalian retina. Studies have profiled gene expression in these cells to define genes that may be relevant to their differences in neurogenic potential. However, less is known about differences in micro-RNA (miRNA) expression. In this study, we compared miRNAs from RPCs and MG to identify miRNAs more highly expressed in RPCs, and others more highly expressed in MG. To determine whether these miRNAs are relevant to the difference in neurogenic potential between these two cell types, we tested them in dissociated cultures of MG using either mimics or antagomiRs to increase or reduce expression, respectively. Among the miRNAs tested, miR-25 and miR-124 over-expression, or let-7 antagonism, induced Ascl1 expression and conversion of approximately 40% of mature MG into a neuronal/RPC phenotype. Our results suggest that the differences in miRNA expression between MG and RPCs contribute to their difference in neurogenic potential and that manipulations in miRNAs provide a new tool to reprogram MG for retinal regeneration.
2019-08-14 | GSE135816 | GEO