Transcriptome analysis of the uninjured Muller glia (MG) and MG derived retinal progenitors at 4 day post injured zebrafish retina

The study was aimed at comparing the transcriptome of MG cells of the retina with the progenitors derived from them after an injury. This information will help in the identification of factors that are responsible for the retinal regeneration. Muller glia were isolated by fluorescent activated cell sorting (FACS) using uninjured retinas from transgenice zebrafish (gfap:gfp) where green florescent protein (GFP) is under the control of the glial fibrillary acidic protein (gfap) promoter. MG-derived retinal progenitors were isolated by FACS at 4 days post retinal injury from 1016 tuba1a:gfp transgenic fish where GFP is driven by the tuba1a promoter which is specifically activated in these progenitors. Total RNA was isolated from these cell populations and subjected to microarray analysis to compare their transcriptomes. Samples were prepared in duplicate.