Chapter 8 - The Chick as a Model for Retina Development and Regeneration

Abstract

The chick provides an excellent system to explore cell and molecular events during retina development and regeneration. Chick embryos are wonderful to work with in a variety of aspects. The retina can regenerate during early development. The embryonic chick can regenerate its retina via two modes. One requires the activation of stem/progenitor cells present in the ciliary margin, while the other involves the use of the classic process of transdifferentiation. One of the great advantages of working with the embryonic chick eye is that the retina can be repaired or replaced if damaged or removed. The accessibility of the embryo for microsurgery combined with the availability of molecular tools in the chick has made this a great system to study and dissect the early molecular events that take place during retina regeneration. The chick genome was also recently sequenced, and this provides a vast range of possibilities to study the early stages of retina regeneration, including the use of gene array technology to identify critical genes regulated during chick retina regeneration.