Kidney pathology alters cell-clustering in single cell RNA sequencing

Author(s): Lijun Ma, Mariana Murea, Young A Choi, Ashok K Hemal, Alexei V Mikhailov, James A Snipes, Jeff W Chou, Liang Liu, Robert C Langefeld, Wei Cui, Lance D Miller, Gregory A Hawkins, Nicholette D Palmer, Carl D Langefeld, Barry I Freedman.

Single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-Seq) is useful to classify cellspecific gene expression profiles in kidney tissue. As viable cells are required, we report an optimized cell dissociation methodology and the necessity of screening tissue histology prior to scRNA-Seq. We demonstrate that glomerular injury can selectively reduce the appearance of groups of cells during analysis of cell clustering and we confirmed reductions in cell-specific markers among injured cells on kidney sections with fluorescence microscopy. Interpretation of scRNA-Seq results may be refined based upon these considerations.