Identification of differential expressed genes among P-RPC, rESC-RPC1 and rESC-RPC2 through genome-wide transcript profiling

Degenerative retinal diseases like age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are the leading cause of blindness. Cell transplantation showed promising therapeutic effect for such diseases, and retinal progenitor cell (RPC) derived from embryonic stem cell (ESC) is one of the sources of such donor cells. Here, we established two protocols through which two types of rat ESC-derived RPCs (rESC-RPCs) were obtained and both contained some NPCs and committed retina lineage cells. As P-RPCs have been reported to successfully integrate into host eyes, we sough to identify differentially expressed genes among P-RPCs, rESC-RPC1s and rESC-RPC2s through genome-wide transcript profiling. rESC-RPC2 can integrate into the host retina, form synaptic connections and restore visual function after transplanted into the degenerative retinal disease model RCS rat. RPCs differentiated from rESCs following two different protocols were divided into two groups for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. For rESC-RPC1, the cells were switched to adherent culture at D10, while for rESC-RPC2, the suspension culture was maintained to D14. Both RPCs were harvested at D16. P-RPCs derived from the newborn (P1) SD rat retina were applied as positive control. Each group above had three independent biological repeats.