A New Model for Eye Disease

描述（由申请人提供）：糖尿病视网膜病变（DR）和年龄相关性黄斑变性（AMD）是工业化国家成人失明的两个主要原因。这两种情况都涉及血管异常、增殖和新血管渗漏。早产儿视网膜病变（ROP）是早产儿新生儿失明的主要原因，在出生后期间通过补充氧气来维持。这种疾病涉及强烈的视网膜新生血管形成并导致视网膜脱离。失明的另一个原因是角膜新生血管形成，这通常是由角膜损伤和感染引起的。目前用于眼部新生血管形成的哺乳动物模型需要冗长、繁琐的手术操作，并且并不总是导致视力改善;用于研究眼部新生血管形成过程和评估药物作用的替代快速、侵入性较小的动物模型将促进新疗法的鉴定。I期研究验证了斑马鱼作为眼睛血管化模型。第二阶段的研究将开发一个斑马鱼模型的眼部血管形成，可用于筛选药物，这将是有效的治疗衰弱性疾病涉及新血管形成。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Diabetic retinopathy (DR) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are the two leading causes of blindness in adults in the industrialized world. Both conditions involve vascular abnormalities, proliferation and leakage of new blood vessels. Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a major cause of newborn blindness in premature infants maintained by oxygen supplementation during the postnatal period. This disease involves intense neovascularization of the retina and leads to retinal detachment. Another cause of blindness is corneal neovascularization, which often results from injury and infection in the cornea. Current mammalian models for ocular neovascularization require lengthy, tedious surgical manipulation and do not always result in improved vision; an alternative rapid, less invasive animal model for studying the process of ocular neovascularization and assessing drug effects will facilitate identification of new therapeutics. Phase I research validated zebrafish as a model for vascularization of the eye. Phase II research will develop a zebrafish model for ocular vascularization that can be used to screen drugs that would be effective in treating debilitating diseases involving neovascularization.