Breeding transgenic zebrafish for studies of retina

在脊椎动物中，视网膜神经回路处理图像，从视觉环境中提取关于颜色、形状、大小和运动的信息。虽然猫、鼠、鼠和兔等实验动物提供了人类夜间视觉的可信模型，但斑马鱼像人类和其他东半球灵长类动物一样，在白天的色觉方面令人惊叹。斑马鱼是一种具有4种视锥感光器类型和8种视锥视蛋白类型的四色体动物，它们对红、绿、蓝和紫外线具有选择性的敏感性。对处理这种丰富的颜色信息的神经回路的研究可以通过对具有额外特殊用途基因的鱼线的研究来辅助。 根据这一协议产生和维护的斑马鱼品系是从其他实验室进口的，在那里额外的基因被添加到DNA中或从DNA中删除。在某些情况下，通过杂交或完善现有品系的测序信息，在室内创造新的表型。根据其他研究计划中描述的目标和目的，对本研究计划中生产的成鱼和仔鱼进行研究。 对正常视网膜回路中图像处理的研究为理解神经回路中的疾病过程提供了背景。这个动物设施容纳了视觉的基因突变，这是人类遗传病的类似物。

In vertebrate animals, retinal neural circuits process images, extracting information about color, shape size and movement from visual surroundings. While laboratory animals such as cat, rat, mouse and rabbit provide plausible models of human nocturnal vision, zebrafish, like humans and other old-world primates, are remarkable for diurnal color vision. Zebrafish is a tetrachromat with 4 cone photoreceptor types, and 8 cone opsin types selectively sensitive to red, green, blue and ultraviolet wavelengths. Studies of the neural circuitry through which this rich color information is processed can be aided through studies of fish lines with additional special-purpose genes. The zebrafish lines generated and maintained under this protocol were imported from other laboratories, where extra genes were added to, or deleted from, the DNA. In some cases new phenotypes are created in house by cross breeding, or by refining sequencing information on existing lines. Adult and larval fish produced in this research program are studied according to goals and objectives described in other research programs. The studies of image processing in normal retinal circuits provides a background on which to understand disease processes in neural circuits. This animal facility houses genetic mutations of vision which are analogues of human genetic disease.