Project: SUF04

Corneal injury induces complex cellular and immune responses that govern inflammation, tissue regeneration, and pathological remodelling. However, a comprehensive understanding of the cellular landscape and immune responses across different corneal disease models remains limited. This project aims to establish a robust and reproducible workflow for single-cell transcriptomic profiling of the mouse cornea, encompassing standardized tissue dissociation, single-cell isolation, and enrichment of viable CD45⁺ immune cells for downstream single-cell RNA sequencing.

Using a range of experimental mouse models for corneal injury already established with additional disease models to be incorporated in the future, we will generate high-quality single-cell datasets representing diverse pathological conditions. In parallel, we will develop a standardized computational pipeline for single-cell RNA sequencing analysis, enabling consistent quality control, cell type annotation, differential expression analysis, trajectory inference, and cell-cell communication analyses across studies.

The resulting datasets will be integrated into a comprehensive Mouse Corneal Disease Atlas, providing a unified reference of cellular composition, immune dynamics, and disease-associated transcriptional programs across multiple corneal pathologies. This resource will facilitate cross-model comparisons, enable the identification of shared and disease-specific cellular mechanisms, and serve as a valuable platform for discovering therapeutic targets and advancing translational research in corneal biology.