Graduation Year
2020
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Chemistry
Reader 1
Katy Muzikar
Reader 2
Daniel J. O’Leary
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
2020 Hanna Black
Abstract
The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs located in the posterior abdominal wall. They perform the vital task of filtering the blood and concentrating its waste products into urine. As a result, the kidneys play a role in regulating blood pressure, blood pH, and electrolyte balance.4 Kidney disease is a broad heading for a variety of illnesses pertaining to the kidney, but the end result is that the kidneys have a greatly reduced ability to clean the blood.11 The overall burden of kidney disease is massive because the treatments available are extremely expensive, in short supply, and the condition itself greatly increases the chances of developing other serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease.11 The burden of kidney disease is so immense that it is
recognized a major public health issue alongside conditions such as diabetes and obesity, and there is a tremendous need for treatment options that address kidney disease in its earliest stages to prevent serious adverse health consequences down the line.11 Single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is a new tool that enables researchers to studies tissues and organs at the resolution of individual cells.12 The technology is unique in that it enables researchers to take extremely high resolution data for thousands of cells at once, data which is then analyzed using
sophisticated bioinformatics techniques.12 In the interest in adding to the body of knowledge about the kidney and vascular systems throughout the body, I matched scRNA-seq data to an anatomical map of the renal vasculature and identified transcriptional differences between the distinct endothelial compartments, as well as identified “zonation” in the transcriptional profiles of endothelial cells along the arterio-venous axis and the cortico-medullary axis. Lastly, I compared these findings to a dataset of P0 endothelial cells, which showed an arterio-venous distribution but appeared to reveal an underdeveloped cortico-medullary axis.
Recommended Citation
Black, Hannah, "Multidimensional Zonation in the Renal Vasculature" (2020). Pomona Senior Theses. 266.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_theses/266
