Inherited retinal dystrophy in Mer knockout mice.

Abstract

Abnormalities of the retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells are seen in several inherited degenerations such as Best disease (Petrukhin et al., 1998; Marmorstein et al., 2000), Stargardt disease (Weng et al., 1999), Sorsby’s fundus dystrophy (Steinmetz et al., 1992; Jacobson et al., 1995), and childhood-onset severe retinal dystrophy (Gu et al., 1997) and Leber congenital amaurosis due to RPE65 mutations (Marlhens et al., 1997; Morimura et al., 1998; Lotery et al., 2000; Thompson et al., 2000). RCS rats have been studied extensively as a model of photoreceptor (PR)-RPE cell interactions (Mullen and LaVail, 1976; LaVail, 2001) and retinal degeneration (Strauss et al., 1998; LaVail, 2001). Retinal degeneration in RCS results from failure of the RPE to phagocytize shed rod outer segments (OS) (Herron et al., 1969; Bok and Hall, 1971). The unphagocytized OS membranes form membranous whorls at the RPE surface, and the rod OS grow abnormally long (Dowling and Sidman, 1962; LaVail and Battelle, 1975). Eventually, the OS layer degenerates into a debris zone with subsequent PR cell death (Dowling and Sidman, 1962).KeywordsRetinal DegenerationRetinal DystrophyStargardt DiseaseVitelliform Macular DystrophyScotopic Threshold ResponseThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.