Comparative transcriptomic analysis of self-organized, in vitro generated optic tissues

Embryonic stem (ES) cells have a remarkable capacity to self-organize complex, multi-layered optic cups in vitro via a culture technique called SFEBq. During both SFEBq and in vivo optic cup development, Rax (Rx) expressing neural retina epithelial (NRE) tissues utilize Fgf and Wnt/ß-catenin signalling pathways to differentiate into neural retina (NR) and retinal-pigmented epithelial (RPE) tissues, respectively. How these signaling pathways affect gene expression during optic tissue formation has remained largely unknown, especially at the transcriptome scale. Overall design: We generated Day 10 Rx+ optic tissue using SFEBq, exposed these tissues to either Fgf or Wnt/ß-catenin stimulation, and assayed their gene expression at Days 12 and 15 using RNA-Seq. We measured gene expression in these 5 sample groups in biological triplicate using RNA-seq (Illumina HiSeq) .

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Andrabi M, Kuraku S, Takata N, Sasai Y, Love NR