The zebrafish as a tool for understanding the biology of visual disorders.
Retinal degenerations are the commonest cause of blindness in the Western world, affecting 5% of the population, yet remain largely untreatable. A better understanding of the mechanisms of disease is needed. Zebrafish fill a gap in the current repertoire of models, offering genetic tractability in a vertebrate. Their retina has many similarities with a human retina. Importantly, unlike rodents, they have rich colour vision, offering the potential to model the macular degenerations. A variety of physiological assays, genetic manipulations and histological tools have been developed and useful models of human disease created.
Goldsmith
P
P
Department of Anatomy, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DY, UK.
Harris
W A
WA
D000818:Animals; D001766:Blindness / Q000209:etiology; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques; D023421:Models, Animal; D012160:Retina / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000473:pathology; D012162:Retinal Degeneration / Q000209:etiology; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*