Epigenetic Regulation of Retinal Histogenesis

Retinal histogenesis is a tightly regulated developmental process and gene regulation is a major underlying mechanism. Much has been learned about the transcription factors that control one fundamental aspect of retinal histogenesis, retinal cell differentiation. Transcription factors interact with chromatin to achieve spatial and temporal specific gene expression, but conventional methods have been slow and inefficient in studying transcription factor/chromatin interactions in the developing retina. The advent of single-cell technologies enabled the delineation of the relationships between the different retinal cell lineages and the progression of the epigenetic landscape along each lineage trajectory. Mapping transcription factor occupancy in the developing retina with newly developed techniques provides further insight into how transcription factors interact with and change the epigenetic landscape to promote retinal cell differentiation. Future efforts should focus on testing and validating the roles of the extensive transcription factor/chromatin interactions uncovered from the epigenomics studies.