Analysis of retina degeneration protection mechanism by the Channelrodopsin gene introduction.

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We examined protection effects of ChR2 expression on the retinal ganglion cells of hereditary photoreceptor cell degeneration rats(RCS rats). The RCS rat showed recovery of visual evoked potentials after the gene transfer, that indicated the function of the ganglion cell was held. Moreover, results of the immunohistological evaluation indicated ChR2 was also effective on secondary degeneration of ganglion cells by the ChR2 expression.Next, mRNAs from the retinas were extracted and performed by a microarray analysis. As a result, we detected 437 increased-genes and 755 decreased-genes in the ChR2 transduced group. The detected genes were relevant to ion channels and signal transductions.It was thought that these changes were caused by ChR2 gene functioned as a photoactivated ion channel within the retina after ChR2 gene transfer.