title: Retinal vasculature of adult zebrafish: in vivo imaging using confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscopy.
abstract: Over the past 3 decades the zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become an important biomedical research species. As their use continues to grow additional techniques and tools will be required to keep pace with ongoing research using this species. In this paper we describe a novel method for in vivo imaging of the retinal vasculature in adult animals using a commercially available confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO). With this instrumentation, we demonstrate the ability to distinguish diverse vascular phenotypes in different transgenic GFP lines. In addition this technology allows repeated visualization of the vasculature in individual zebrafish over time to document vascular leakage progression and recovery induced by intraocular delivery of proteins that induce vascular permeability. SLO of the retinal vasculature was found to be highly informative, providing images of high contrast and resolution that were capable of resolving individual vascular endothelial cells. Finally, the procedures required to acquire SLO images from zebrafish are non-invasive, simple to perform and can be achieved with low animal mortality, allowing repeated imaging of individual fish.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA. Electronic address: bellb3@ccf.org.
authors.forename: Brent A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA; Department of Ophthalmology, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kaul
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA; Department of Ophthalmology, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Joe G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Hollyfield
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmic Research, Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA; Department of Ophthalmology, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Bela
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Anand-Apte
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002199:Capillary Permeability; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005654:Fundus Oculi; D009887:Ophthalmoscopy / Q000379:methods*; D012171:Retinal Vessels / Q000166:cytology*; D015027:Zebrafish
keywords: Blood retinal barrier; Confocal; Imaging; Retina; SLO; Scanning laser ophthalmoscope; Vasculature; Zebrafish