Transcriptome Analysis of Corneal Endothelial Cells in Col8a2Q455K/Q455K/Tcf4+/- compared to Col8a2Q455K/Q455K FECD Mouse Model
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ABSTRACT: This study investigated transcriptional changes in corneal endothelial cells with and without Tcf4 heterozygous knockout in Col8a2Q455K/Q455K FECD mouse model. RNA-seq analysis was performed on corneal endothelial cells isolated from Col8a2Q455K/Q455K and Col8a2Q455K/Q455K/Tcf4+/- mice. Principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering demonstrated distinct gene expression patterns between the two groups, identifying 1,053 differentially expressed genes. These genes showed significant changes in pathways related to ion transport and TNF signaling.
Project description:Transparency of the human cornea is necessary for vision. Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD) is a bilateral, heritable degeneration of the corneal endothelium, and a leading indication for corneal transplantation in developed countries. While the early onset, and rarer, form of FECD has been linked to COL8A2 mutations, the more common, late onset form of FECD has genetic mutations linked to only a minority of cases. Epigenetic modifications that occur in FECD are unkonwn. Here, we report on and compare the DNA methyhlation landscape of normal human corneal endothelial (CE) tissue and CE from FECD patients using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 (HM450) DNA methylation array. We show that DNA methylation profiles are distinct between control and FECD samples. Differentially methylated probes (10,961) were identified in the FECD samples compared with the control samples, with the majority of probes being hypermethylated in the FECD samples. Genes containing differentially methylated sites were disproportionately annotated to ontological categories involving cytoskeletal organization, ion transport, hematopoetic cell differentiation, and cellular metabolism. Our results suggest that altered DNA methylation patterns may contribute to loss of corneal transparency in FECD through a global accumulation of sporadic DNA methylation changes in genes critical to basic CE biological processes Methylation of DNA is a key epigenetic mark that occurs in aging tissues. Altered DNA methlyation patterns have been observed in several late onset, and progressive ocular diseases including macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts. While DNA methylation changes also occur in the common, late onset corneal dystrophy, FECD, has not been previously studied. Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy (FECD) is a bilateral, heritable degeneration of the corneal endothelium, and a leading indicatioin for corneal transplantation in developed countries. Our study examined and compared the genome-scale DNA methylation profiels of corneal endothelial tissue from normal control and FECD patients using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 (HM450) DNA methylation array. We show that DNA methylation profiles are distinct between control and FECD samples. Differentially methylated probes (10,961) were identified in the FECD samples compared with the control samples, with the majority of probes being hypermethylated in the FECD samples. Genes containing differentially methylated sites were disproportionately annotated to ontological categories involving cytoskeletal organization, ion transport, hematopoetic cell differentiation, and cellular metabolism. Our findings suggest that alterations in DNA methylation may contribute to FECD pathogenesis by modifying the expression of genes with critical biological roles in the corneal endothelium. Our study has important clinical implications as FECD is a leading indication for corneal transplantationin the geriatric population. The effective medical treatment of FECD is a major unmet clinical challenge. Our findings suggest altered DNA methylation as a novel candidate therapeutic target in FECD
Project description:Fuchs' endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is an inherited bilateral eye disease associated with a reduction in the density and functionality of the corneal endothelium. FECD is a genetic disease with autosomal-dominant inheritance. Genetic variants in the TCF4 gene have the most direct association with sporadic late-onset FECD in Caucasian patients. Association of the intronic single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs613872 in TCF4 gene with FECD was discovered in the Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) performed by Baratz et al. (2010; doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1007064).The most specific genetic marker of the late-onset FECD also in TCF4 gene - the CTG18.1 expansion of trinucleotide repeats was discovered by Wieben et al. (2012; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049083). Expansion of the CTG18.1 trinucleotide repeats is detected in approximately 70% of FECD patients of European descent populations and considered to be causal for FECD. Later the additional bigger GWAS on 1404 FECD cases and 2564 controls was conducted by Afshari with coauthors (2017; doi: 10.1038/ncomms14898). However, there was no information on the CTG18.1 expansion status available for the whole set of participants. Participants of our set were genotyped for CTG181.1 expansion. We used our set to mark the haplotype associated with the CTG181.1 expanded allele.
Project description:This dataset contains proteomic profiles of Descemet's membrane (DM) with corneal endothelial cells derived from patients with Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) and non-FECD subjects by shotgun proteomics. FECD is the most common inherited corneal disease. Fibrillar focal excrescences, called guttae, and corneal edema due to corneal endothelial cell death result in progressive vision loss. Our dataset indicated that 32 distinctive molecules were expressed only in the FECD-DM but not in the DM of the control subject, possibly having important roles in the pathophysiology of FECD.
Project description:Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a vision impairing pathology affecting the endothelial cells of the cornea. To better understand the disease, we developed a method to cultivate FECD cells isolated from surgical specimens. Using gene profiling, we compared the mRNA profiles of passage 2 FECD cells with passage 2 non-pathological corneal endothelial cells isolated from eye bank donor corneas.
Project description:Genome wide DNA methylation profiling of normal human corneal endothelium and human corneal endothelium from FECD cases. The Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC 850K BeadChip was used to obtain DNA methylation profiles across approximately 850,000 CpGs in genomic DNA from human corneal endothelium samples. Samples included 11 non-FECD donors, 17 FECD cases.
Project description:RNA sequencing analysis was performed using corneal endothelial tissue from 60-week-old Tcf4(CTG)100/(CTG)100 mice and wild type controls (n=5 per group). Among 26,133 expressed genes, we identified 4,510 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with |Log2 Fold Change| ≥ 1 and adjusted P-value < 0.05, including 539 upregulated and 3,971 downregulated genes. Gene Ontology and pathway analyses revealed significant enrichment in pathways related to muscle system processes, visual system development, and ion channel activities. The most significantly enriched pathways included extracellular matrix organization, peptide ligand-binding receptors, and neuronal system pathways.
Project description:Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a progressive vision impairing disease caused by thickening of Descemet’s membrane and gradual degeneration and loss of corneal endothelial cells. The aim of this study was to identify differentially expressed genes between FECD-affected and unaffected corneal endothelium to gain insight into the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying this disease. Microarray gene expression analysis was performed on total RNA from FECD-affected and unaffected corneal endothelium-Descemet’s membrane (CE-DM) specimens using the Illumina HumanHT-12 v3.0 expression array. RNA from pools of FECD-affected (n=3 per pool) and individual unaffected (n=3) specimens was used for comparison. Altered expression of a sub-set of differentially expressed genes was validated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) in independent specimens. Bioinformatics analysis was performed using InnateDB to reveal functional relationships among the differentially expressed genes and molecular pathways involved in the disease. A total of 16,513 genes were found expressed in the corneal endothelium of which 142 genes were differentially expressed between FECD-affected and unaffected endothelium (log2 fold-change ≥1.5, corrected p-value ≤0.05). Most of the genes were up-regulated (126) and a small proportion down-regulated (16) in affected corneal endothelium. Of the twelve genes prioritised for validation, differential expression of 10 genes, including those ranked 57th and 81st by significance validated by qRT-PCR (8 up-regulated and 2 downregulated, corrected p ≤0.05), one gene showed a trend for up-regulation in affected endothelium, consistent with the microarray analysis and another was up-regulated in an independent study indicating robustness of the differential expression dataset. Bioinformatic analysis revealed significant over-representation of differentially expressed genes in extracellular matrix reorganisation, cellular remodelling, immune response, and inflammation. Network analysis showed functional inter-relatedness of the majority of the dysregulated genes and revealed known direct functional relationships between 20 of the genes; many of these genes have roles in macrophage differentiation, phagocytosis and inflammation. This is the second report of microarray gene expression analysis in FECD. This study revealed a set of highly dysregulated genes in the corneal endothelium in FECD. More than a third of the dysregulated genes in the disease have been discovered for the first time and thus are novel. The dysregulated genes strongly suggest the presence of phagocytic cells, most likely immune cells, and inflammation in corneal endothelium in the disease. This study provides a molecular framework for delineating the mechanisms underlying these cellular processes in FECD.
Project description:PURPOSE: Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a degenerative eye disorder affecting 4% of Americans older than 40. It is the leading indication for corneal endothelial (CE) transplantation for which there is a global donor shortage. This study aimed to gain further insight into the pathophysiology of FECD and identify targets for nonsurgical therapy. METHODS: CE from patients with late-onset FECD was compared with that of normal controls using microarray expression analysis (n = 4 FECD, n = 4 normal), reverse transcriptase quantitative PCR (n = 9 FECD, n = 8 normal), and immunohistology (n = 55 FECD, n = 15 normal). RESULTS: This led to the identification of circulating fibrocytes and their dendritic derivatives in all examined CE samples with FECD (in all clinical stages of symptomatic FECD and independent of prior cataract surgery). These cells were not present in normal CE. In this study we characterize their morphology, protein expression profile, number, and localization within the CE layer of patients with FECD. CONCLUSIONS: Circulating fibrocytes and their dendritic derivatives are a new aspect of FECD that deserves further investigation. Because they are known to cause fibrosis in a variety of organs, they may play a similar role in FECD and might be a valuable target for nonsurgical therapy.
Project description:PURPOSE: Fuchs’ endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a degenerative eye disorder affecting 4% of Americans older than 40. It is the leading indication for corneal endothelial (CE) transplantation for which there is a global donor shortage. This study aimed to gain further insight into the pathophysiology of FECD and identify targets for nonsurgical therapy. METHODS: CE from patients with late-onset FECD was compared with that of normal controls using microarray expression analysis (n = 4 FECD, n = 4 normal), reverse transcriptase quantitative PCR (n = 9 FECD, n = 8 normal), and immunohistology (n = 55 FECD, n = 15 normal). RESULTS: This led to the identification of circulating fibrocytes and their dendritic derivatives in all examined CE samples with FECD (in all clinical stages of symptomatic FECD and independent of prior cataract surgery). These cells were not present in normal CE. In this study we characterize their morphology, protein expression profile, number, and localization within the CE layer of patients with FECD. CONCLUSIONS: Circulating fibrocytes and their dendritic derivatives are a new aspect of FECD that deserves further investigation. Because they are known to cause fibrosis in a variety of organs, they may play a similar role in FECD and might be a valuable target for nonsurgical therapy.