Gene expression analysis during retinal ganglion cell development

Retinal ganglion cells are the final output neurons that gather electrical signals from light-sensing cells and relay this information to discrete locations in the brain. The loss of ganglion cells due to cell death is an irreversible process in glaucoma. Therefore, to fully restore vision in glaucoma patients, cellular replacement therapy is being explored as future treatment. However, for cellular replacement therapy to be a viable option, we must gain a better understanding of the networks of genes that combine together to generate retinal ganglion cells. The goal of our lab is to gain insight into the gene networks responsible for the generation of retinal ganglion cells. Using single-cell transcriptomics and microarrays, we have characterized the transcriptional programs that are activated in individual developing ganglion cells during normal development in the mouse, zebrafish and chicken. These experiments enable us to focus our future functional experiments on those networks that are the most conserved and, therefore, the most likely to be critical in ganglion cell development