A proteogenomic atlas of the human neural retina

Front Genet. 2024 Sep 19:15:1451024. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2024.1451024. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

The human neural retina is a complex tissue with abundant alternative splicing and more than 10% of genetic variants linked to inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) alter splicing. Traditional short-read RNA-sequencing methods have been used for understanding retina-specific splicing but have limitations in detailing transcript isoforms. To address this, we generated a proteogenomic atlas that combines PacBio long-read RNA-sequencing data with mass spectrometry and whole genome sequencing data of three healthy human neural retina samples. We identified nearly 60,000 transcript isoforms, of which approximately one-third are novel. Additionally, ten novel peptides confirmed novel transcript isoforms. For instance, we identified a novel IMPDH1 isoform with a novel combination of known exons that is supported by peptide evidence. Our research underscores the potential of in-depth tissue-specific transcriptomic analysis to enhance our grasp of tissue-specific alternative splicing. The data underlying the proteogenomic atlas are available via EGA with identifier EGAD50000000101, via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD045187, and accessible through the UCSC genome browser.

Keywords: alternative splicing; inherited retinal disease (IRD); isoform; long-read sequencing; mass spectrometry; multi-omics; neural retina; proteogenomics.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (184.034.019 to the Netherlands X-omics initiative); Ghent University Special Research Fund (BOF20/GOA/023 to EB); H2020 MSCA ITN grant (813490 Star T to EB and FC); Solve-RET (EJPRD19-234 to EB); and StarT (813490 to AR). EB is a Senior Clinical Investigator (1802220N) of the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO) and a member of ERN-EYE (Framework Partnership Agreement No 739534-ERN-EYE). Funding for open access charge: Netherlands X-omics initiative. The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) Project was supported by the Common Fund of the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and by the NCI, NHGRI, NHLBI, NIDA, NIMH, and NINDS. The data used for the analyses described in this manuscript were obtained from the GTEx Portal on 12 June 2023 [GTEx Analysis Release v.8 (dbGaP Accession phs000424. v8. p2)].