Genetics and Genomics Commons^™

Mapping And Functional Analysis Of Cis-Regulatory Elements In Mouse Photoreceptors, Andrew Hughes

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Photoreceptors are light-sensitive neurons that mediate vision, and they are the most commonly affected cell type in genetic forms of blindness. In mice, there are two basic types of photoreceptors, rods and cones, which mediate vision in dim and bright environments, respectively. The transcription factors (TFs) that control rod and cone development have been studied in detail, but the cis-regulatory elements (CREs) through which these TFs act are less well understood. To comprehensively identify photoreceptor CREs in mice and to understand their relationship with gene expression, we performed open chromatin (ATAC-seq) and transcriptome (RNA-seq) profiling of FACS-purified rods and cones. …