Originally Aired: December 16, 2021
Time: 9:00 am PT, 12:00 am ET, 18:00 CET

The retina is a multilayered, highly heterogeneous neuronal tissue with intricate cellular interactions. Single-cell multiomics allows us to take steps toward understanding the biology of this complex tissue through the ability to identify and characterize all cell subtypes. Thus, a single cell transcriptomic and epigenomic atlas of the retina can be a valuable resource in opening new opportunities for future mechanistic studies.

In this GEN webinar, our distinguished presenter, Dr. Rui Chen, will discuss how his team at Baylor College of Medicine took on the complexity of gene expression and regulation in the human retina by generating a multiomic cell atlas at single-cell resolution. snRNA-seq data from over 250,000 nuclei and snATAC-seq data from over 150,000 nuclei were combined to form a highly comprehensive atlas, resulting in the identification of over 60 different cell types at a sensitivity of 0.01%. In addition, integrative analysis of this data showed 70,000 distal cis-element gene pairs, a majority of which were cell type-specific and had been overlooked in the previous investigation via bulk profiling. eQTLs from the bulk analysis were combined with the multiomic single-cell atlas to yield candidate causal variants for targeted genes within the context of cell-type data. Taken together, this comprehensive single-cell atlas enables systematic, in-depth molecular characterization of cell subtypes in the human retina.

A live Q&A session followed the presentation, offering a chance to pose questions to our expert panelist.

Rui Chen, PhD
Rui Chen, PhD
Professor
Baylor College of Medicine

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