Lessons learned from gene therapy for color blindness in primates

Abstract

AbstractColor blindness is the most common genetic disorder. The possibility of curing color blindness using gene therapy was explored by adding a third type of cone pigment to dichromatic retinas of squirrel monkeys. This opened a new avenue to explore the requirements for establishing the neural circuits for a new dimension of color sensation. The addition of a third opsin in adults was sufficient to produce trichromatic color vision. Thus, trichromacy can arise from a single addition of a third cone class in a primate and it does not require an early developmental process. This has implications for understanding how our brain processes conscious visual information and it illuminates the opportunities and limits of gene therapy for treating human vision disorders.