Breeding transgenic zebrafish for studies of retina

在脊椎动物中，视网膜神经回路处理图像，从视觉环境中提取有关颜色、形状、大小和运动的信息。虽然猫、大鼠、小鼠和兔子等实验动物提供了人类夜间视觉的合理模型，但斑马鱼与人类和其他旧世界灵长类动物一样，在昼夜色觉方面表现出色。斑马鱼是一种四色视动物，有4种视锥光感受器类型和8种视锥视蛋白类型，对红、绿、蓝和紫外线波长选择性敏感。对处理丰富颜色信息的神经回路的研究，可以通过对带有额外特殊目的基因的鱼线的研究得到帮助。

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.