title: The electroretinogram of the rhodopsin knockout mouse.
abstract: The electroretinogram (ERG) of the rhodopsin knockout (rho-/-) mouse of Humphries et al. (1997) (Humphries et al., 1997) was studied for evidence of light-evoked rod activity and to describe the cone function. The rho-/- retina develops normal numbers of rod and cone nuclei, but the rods have no outer segments, and no rhodopsin is found by immunohistochemistry. The dark-adapted ERG threshold was elevated 4.7 log units above wild-type (WT) control mice, indicating that any residual rod responses were reduced >50,000-fold, consistent with a complete functional knockout. The dark-adapted rho-/- ERG had a cone waveform, and the spectral sensitivity peaked near 510 nm for both dark-adapted and light-adapted conditions, without evidence of a Purkinje shift. The light-adapted ERG b-wave amplitude of young rho-/- mice was the same as WT. The amplitude remained steady up to postnatal day P47, but thereafter it declined to only 1-2% by P80 when no cone outer segments remained. Cone b-wave threshold of dark-adapted rho-/- mice was -1.07 +/- 0.39 log cd-s/m2 (n = 17), which is 1.27 log units more sensitive than light-adapted thresholds against a rod-suppressing Ganzfeld background of 1.61 log scotopic cd/m2. This indicates that dark-adapted WT responses to still dimmer stimuli are exclusively rod driven with minimal cone intrusion. Above this cone threshold intensity, the dark-adapted b-wave of WT will be a summation of rod and cone responses. Threshold versus intensity (TVI) studies gave no evidence of a rod influence on the mouse cone b-wave.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, and Programs in Neuroscience and in Bioengineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Toda
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Bush
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Humphries
authors.forename: P A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Sieving
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003623:Dark Adaptation; D004596:Electroretinography; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology*; D017949:Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells / Q000502:physiology; D017948:Retinal Rod Photoreceptor Cells / Q000502:physiology; D012243:Rhodopsin / Q000172:deficiency* / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012243:Rhodopsin