NEPTUNE: a neuronal cell death pathway prediction tool used to decipher neurodegeneration using single cell RNA-seq datasets

NEPTUNE identifies neuronal cell death markers from single-cell RNA-seq differential gene lists, and in rd1 mouse photoreceptors it links late-stage death to overlapping cell-death programs rather than purely apoptosis.

• Why it matters: Neuronal degeneration is hard to profile without bias from cancer or regenerating cells, and neuron-specific biomarkers are needed to better reflect post-mitotic biology.
• What they did: The team built NEPTUNE, a user-friendly bioinformatics tool that takes user-provided differentially expressed gene lists from single-cell RNA-seq, then outputs marker lists with fold change, impact type, cell-death type, and strength score plus pathway mapping and enrichment.
• The result: Applied to a public single-cell dataset of photoreceptor degeneration in the rd1 mouse model, the tool generates publishable graphs and suggests late-stage photoreceptor death engages overlapping cell death pathways, not only apoptotic mechanisms.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.