Transcriptional profile changes in dedifferentiating Müller glia in mammalian cell culture after treatment with an α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist

Conclusions: PNU-282987 activation of RPE causes signficant transcript profile changes in MG cell culture that leads to upregulation of the HB-EGF/Ascl1/Lin28 pathway that was seen with RNA-seq profiles and validated with qRT-PCR. Further, these gene expression changes lead to dedifferentation of MG to an RPC-like fate and expression of several retinal RPC markers were found in RNA-seq data set and was validated with immunocytochemistry. Our study is the first to show that activaiton of the α7 nAChR on RPE can lead to MG dedifferentiation and that the HB-EGF/Ascl1/Lin28 pathway is upregulated in these cells.