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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Seminars in cell & developmental biology 2003-02, Vol.14 (1), p.11-18
Main Authors: Goldsmith, P, Harris, W.A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Blindness - etiology
Clinical Laboratory Techniques
Danio rerio
Disease
Freshwater
Models, Animal
Retina
Retina - anatomy & histology
Retina - pathology
Retinal
Retinal Degeneration - etiology
Vision
Vision Disorders - etiology
Vision Disorders - genetics
Vision Disorders - pathology
Zebrafish
Zebrafish - genetics
Zebrafish - physiology
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1084-9521
1096-3634
DOI:10.1016/S1084-9521(02)00167-2