Abstract
Presentation Description :
The anterior segment of the eye is a complex set of interconnected structures, comprising the cornea, conjunctiva, iris, ciliary body, crystalline lens, and aqueous humor outflow pathways. Several of the most prevalent vision-impairing ocular conditions worldwide, including glaucoma, cataract, and uncorrected refractive error, involve these structures. This presentation will describe the generation of an anterior segment cell atlas of the human eye using high throughput single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNAseq), comprising 195,248 nuclei from nondiseased tissues of six human donors. After reviewing the cell types found within each tissue, we will explore an integrated analysis of the entire anterior segment, generated by pooling and re-analyzing all nuclei from contiguous tissues. The integrated analysis will reveal that some cell types are confined to specific tissues, whereas others are shared across tissues, and understanding both the relatedness and diversity of these cell types may yield broad insights into normal and disease-associated anterior segment functions. Finally, using the integrated cell atlas we will investigate cell-type–specific expression patterns of genes that have been implicated in susceptibility to human ocular diseases.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.