In vivo monitoring the dynamic process of acute retinal hemorrhage and repair in zebrafish with spectral‐domain optical coherence tomography

• Published in: Journal of biophotonics 2019-12, Vol.12 (12), p.e201900235-n/a
• Main Authors: Lin, Yanping, Xiang, Xiang, Chen, Tingru, Mao, Guangjuan, Deng, Lijun, Zeng, Lvming, Zhang, Jian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal models; Danio rerio; Eye injuries; Hemorrhage; Imaging; Imaging techniques; Optical Coherence Tomography; regeneration; Repair; Retina; retinal hemorrhage; Retinopathy; Surgery; Tomography; Zebrafish
• ISSN: 1864-063X; 1864-0648
• DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201900235

Retina, the only light sensor in the human eye, is hidden and extremely fragile. Optimized animal models and efficient imaging techniques are very important for the study of retinopathy. In this work, the rapid retinal injury process and the long‐term retinal repair process were in vivo continuously evaluated with a novel imaging technology spectral‐domain optical coherence tomography (SD‐OCT) in a unique animal model zebrafish. Acute retinal injury was constructed on adult zebrafish by needle injection surgery. SD‐OCT imaging was carried out immediately after the mechanical injury. The retinal hemorrhage, which lasted only 5 seconds, could be visualized dynamically by SD‐OCT. The process of blood clearance and retinal repair was also evaluated because SD‐OCT imaging is nondestructive. Both SD‐OCT imaging results and behavioral analyzing results demonstrated that zebrafish retina could be repaired by itself within 15 days, which was confirmed by the results of pathological experiment. As a new model organism, the eye structure of zebrafish is very similar to that of human beings. A zebrafish retinal acute injury model was constructed in this paper. Behavioral experiments validated retinal damage and recovery. The dynamic process of acute retinal hemorrhage (~5 seconds) and subsequent blood clearing process (~3 days) as well as long‐term retinal repairing process (~15 days) were continuously in vivo characterized with a spectral‐domain optical coherence tomography (SD‐OCT) system. Both hemorrhage and retinal lesion could be quantitatively evaluated using the SD‐OCT images. There was well correlation and agreement between the SD‐OCT images and histology.