2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Development of medium size animal models with photoreceptor degeneraion and assessment of visual function from these animals for retinal prosthesis studies
| Project/Area Number |
16591747
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Ophthalmology
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| Research Institution | Nagoya University |
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Principal Investigator |
KONDO Mineo Nagoya University, University Hospital, Assistant Professor, 医学部附属病院, 講師 (80303642)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
TERASAKI Hiroko Nagoya University, Graduate School of Medicine, Professor, 大学院・医学系研究科, 教授 (40207478)
NAKAMURA Makoto Nagoya University, Graduate School of Medicine, Associate Professor, 大学院・医学系研究科, 助教授 (60283438)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2005
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| Keywords | retinal prosthesis / transgenic / medium size / rabbit / retintis pigmentosa / retina / animal model / electroretinogram |
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| Research Abstract |
Development of an artificial eye or retinal prosthesis requires an animal on which the retinal prosthetic device can be tested. Preferably, the size of the eye of these animals should be close to the size of the human eye. For an evaluation of the safety of a prosthetic eye, the transplantation can be made into animals with healthy eyes. But when considering the possibility of restoring visual function to patients who have lost vision to degenerative diseases of the retina, it would be preferable to transplant the prosthetic device into animals that have also lost their vision in order to verify any possible improvements in the visual function. This would require an animal model with damage of their photoreceptor cells, but with the ganglion cells still remaining functionally intact. In this study, we tried to create a medium-sized animal model, initially rabbits, in which the blindness is induced by degeneration of the photoreceptor cells. To accomplish this goal, the following three projects were performed. (1)Injection of special drugs into the vitreous body to cause photoreceptor degeneration. (2)Systemic application of special drugs to cause photoreceptor degeneration. (3)Induction of photoreceptor degeneration through genetic manipulation. Especially, we focused on the genetic manipulation to induce the photoreceptor degeneration. In this method, rabbits were produced with a mutated rhodopsin gene, which is one of the genes responsible for the retinitis pigmentosa in humans. The rabbit genome clone which includes the rhodopsin gene is isolated, and a vector including rhodopsin gene mutations (Pro347Leu mutation) were made. Then, this vector was injected into fertilized eggs. These animal models are thought to be useful for animal experiments for retinal prosthesis.
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