Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of corneal organoids during development

Abstract

Corneal organoids are useful tools for disease modeling and tissue transplantation; however, they have not yet been well studied during maturation. We characterized human iPSC-derived corneal organoids at 1, 2, 3, and 4months of development using single-cell RNA sequencing to determine the cellular heterogeneity at each stage. We found pluripotent cell clusters committed to epithelial cell lineage at 1month; early corneal epithelial, endothelial, and stromal cell markers at 2months; keratocytes as the largest cell population at 3months; and a large epithelial cell population at 4months. We compared organoid to fetal corneal development at different stages and found that 4-month organoids closely resemble the corneal cellular complexity of the fetal (16 post conception week) and adult cornea. Using RNA velocity trajectory analysis, we found that less differentiated cells appear to give rise to corneal epithelial cells during development.