Curing Blindness in Mice

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The human eye is a complicated organ, with many different parts, each of which have specific jobs to do. Parts of the eye detect light and send that information to various other parts of the eye. Eventually, a signal is sent to the brain itself, which is what allows people to see. If any part of this chain isn’t working properly, a person’s sight will be impaired.

The retina is an important part of the eye. Its job is to detect light, and then pass that information on to different cells in the eye, and eventually to the brain. There are diseases known as Retinal Degenerative diseases, when the retina of the eye becomes damaged and stops functioning. Eyes affected with this disease have dying photoreceptor cells, which means that the eye cannot get the light it needs to function properly. There are no real treatments for these kinds of diseases yet, and so people who have them generally lose their sight. Around one in 3,000 people are affected by this kind of disease, making it very important to find a treatment for these retinal conditions.

Chop2-GFP is a protein that can be put into the eye in order to make it see light, even if certain parts of the eye have been damaged.

A photoreceptor is a specialized cell in the eye which can receive or sense light. These cells send signals to ganglion cells, which are also located in the eye. Each ganglion cell has over one hundred million photoreceptor cells sending it information. There are also rods and cones, which also can send information to the ganglion cells.

This is a complicated process which involves several different parts of the body. The first part of this process is when light enters the eye. What happens at this point?

Your photoreceptors in your ey...

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... nothing else. There is much more to be done with this research because this paper is just a starting point. There are many more complications associated with using ChR2 as a replacement. Some problems such as the photoreceptors that send signals to the ganglion cells are in multiple layers that are obviously not seen with ChR2. Also, the intensity of light that is needed to see a reaction is higher than that of the normal threshold. Various factors block the path to using ChR2, but as more research is done, the path can become clearer and clearer.

Paper Reference:

Anding Bi, Jinjuan Cui, Yu-Ping Ma, Elena Olshevskaya, Mingliang Pu, Alexander M. Dizhoor, and Zhuo-Hua Pan. Ectopic Expression of a Microbial-Type Rhodopsin Restores Visual Responses in Mice with Photoreceptor Degeneration and attached Previews. Neuron 50, 23-33, April 6, 2006 @ Elsevier Inc.

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