Single cell RNA sequencing of stem cell-derived retinal ganglion cells

We used human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) to characterize the transcriptome of 1,174 cells at the single cell level. The human embryonic stem cell line BRN3B-mCherry A81-H7 was differentiated to RGCs using a guided differentiation approach. Cells were harvested at day 36 and incubated with THY1 antibody (Miltenyi) before undergoing FACS. THY1 positive and THY1 negative cells were subsequently prepared for single cell RNA sequencing. Single cell suspensions were loaded onto 10X Genomics Single Cell 3' Chips along with the reverse transcription master mix as per the manufacturer's protocol for the Chromium Single Cell 3' v2 Library (10X Genomics; PN-120233), to generate single cell gel beads in emulsion. Libraries were then sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq 2500.