Histopathology and Electroretinography Services

描述（由申请人提供）：临床表型的研究对于识别受影响的小鼠和检测随年龄的进行性变化都很重要。在疾病发展的所有阶段，组织病理学分析是确定精确的物理变化、与功能变化的相关性以及基因和蛋白质表达定位的关键研究组成部分。杰克逊实验室（TJL）眼科研究人员使用各种复杂的组织学技术来获得准确的、信息丰富的眼睛形态学和组织病理学数据。然而，TJL眼科研究的持续扩张创造了对组织学服务的需求，使TJL的资源能力变得紧张，无法提供这些服务，阻碍了实验室眼科研究项目的进一步发展。拟议的组织学模块将提供一名熟练的组织学家，致力于支持TJL的眼科研究，以及额外的组织学设备，确保满足眼组的组织学需求，并允许持续的研究增长。视网膜电图（ERG）分析也是TJL眼科研究的重要组成部分，因为它能够识别和表征指示眼部疾病的功能异常。TJL的ERG分析目前在眼睛突变资源中进行，这是一个识别、表征和绘制小鼠眼睛突变的程序，是该程序的关键组成部分。然而，最近TJL的个人眼睛研究项目的显著扩张，加上眼睛突变资源和其他大型TJL项目的筛查需求增加，已经产生了现有资源无法满足的ERG测试需求。这反过来又阻碍了TJL眼科研究的持续进展。拟建的ERG模块将提供一名研究助理，使用TJL最近购买的ERG设备，专门为眼部研究项目进行ERG分析。这将确保TJL研究人员的眼科研究项目的持续扩展，也将支持TJL其他项目的眼科疾病筛查。预计组织学和ERG模块都将有助于吸引新的科学家从事眼科研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Study of a clinical phenotype is important both for identifying affected mice and also to detect progressive changes with age. At all stages of disease development, histopathologic analysis is a critical research component for determination of precise physical changes, correlation with functional changes, and localization of gene and protein expression. The Jackson Laboratory (TJL) eye investigators use diverse sophisticated histological techniques to obtain accurate, informative data on eye morphology and histopathology. However, continued expansion of eye research at TJL has created a demand for histology services that is straining the capacity of TJL's resources to provide these services, preventing further growth of the Laboratory's eye research programs. The proposed Histology Module will provide a skilled histologist dedicated to the support of eye research at TJL, and additional histology equipment, ensuring that the histology needs of the eye group are met and allowing continued research growth. Electroretinographic (ERG) analysis is also an essential component of eye research at TJL, because of its ability to identify and characterize functional abnormalities indicative of ocular disorders. ERG analysis at TJL is currently performed in the Eye Mutant Resource, a program to identify, characterize, and map mouse eye mutations and is a critical component of that program. However, the significant recent expansion of TJL's individual eye research programs, together with increased screening needs of the Eye Mutant Resource and other large-scale TJL programs, have created a demand for ERG testing that cannot be met by existing resources. This in turn hinders continued progress in eye research at TJL. The proposed ERG Module will provide a research assistant dedicated to performing ERG analyses for ocular research projects, using ERG equipment recently purchased by TJL. This will ensure the continued expansion of the eye research programs of individual TJL investigators and will also support screening for ocular disorders in other programs at TJL. It is anticipated that both the histology and ERG modules will help attract new scientists to eye research.