Bioinformatics - Retinal Development

Retinal ganglion cells are essential to human vision and damages to them are implicated in various eye diseases such as glaucoma, optic neuritis, and ischemic optic neuropathy. The objective of this project is to understand how retinal ganglion cells are generated and maintained by studying the functions of two genes, Isl1 and Pou4f2, required in these processes. The knowledge obtained from this study will serve as guidance in future endeavors of developing preventive and therapeutic measures for these diseases. There are three goals for this project:

1) To examine whether Isl1 and/or Pou4f2 can specify RGC fate in the absence of Math5;

2) To investigate the molecular basis for the Isl1/Pou4f2 collaboration in regulating downstream genes;

3) To map the binding sites of Isl1 and Pou4f2 in the genome of developing RGCs by ChIP-seq. 

Approaches used for this project include ChIP-Seq to detect transcription binding sites on mouse genome, RNA-Seq to detect both mRNA and microRNA gene expression, and computational analyses to integrate the high-throughput biological data.

This project is funded by NIH.

PI: Xiuqian Mu (Dept. of Ophthalmology)

CO-I: Zihua Hu