Pigmentation level of human iPSC-derived RPE does not indicate a specific gene expression profile

• DOI: 10.7554/elife.92510.3
• Publication Date: 2024-05-09T14:40:42Z
• Authors: Yoko Nakai-Futatsugi; Jianshi Jin; Taisaku Ogawa; Noriko Sakai; Akiko Maeda; Ken-ichi Hironaka; Masakazu Fukuda; Hiroki Danno; Yuji Tanaka; Seiji Hori; Katsuyuki Shiroguchi; Masayo Takahashi
• Keywords: Cell type; Live cell imaging

Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells show heterogeneous levels of pigmentation when cultured in vitro. To know whether their color appearance is correlated with the function RPE, we analyzed intensities human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived RPE (iPSC-RPE) together gene expression profile at single-cell level. For this purpose, utilized our recent invention, Automated Live imaging and cell Picking System (ALPS), which enabled photographing each before RNA-sequencing analysis to cell. While iPSC-RPE were categorized into four clusters by expression, intensity did not project any specific profiles. We reasoned less correlation between actual expressions that directly define level pigmentation, from hypothesized may be a temporal condition strongly indicating functional characteristics RPE.