Transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) analysis of control and NaIO3-treated RPE cells

Purpose: The goal of this experiment is to investigate the relative contributions of various types of cell death in NaIO3-treated RPE cells Methods: RPE cell mRNA profiles were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina HiSeq 4000. Results: According to the differential expressions of mRNA genes, among which 661 genes were upregulated and 637 genes were downregulated with significance after NaIO3 treatment . From the Gene Ontology (GO), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis, it has been identified that ferroptosis ranked as the top pathway in comparison to other types of cell death (apoptosis, and necroptosis) upon NaIO3 treatment, which was additionally validated by the higher FPKM of main regulators in ferroptosis than that in apoptosis. Additionally, it was found that heme oxygenase-1 (HMOX1, also known as HO-1) as well as SLC7A11 (solute carrier family 7 member 11) mRNA were characterized as the most dramatically upregulated genes upon NaIO3 treatment against ARPE-19 cells Conclusions: Our study represented that ferroptosis serves as a predominant pathogenic factor involved in AMD pathological process. Human ARPE-19 cells (RPE cell line) with or without NaIO3 treatment were collected by deep sequencing, in triplicate, using Illumina HiSeq 4000.