Genetic approaches to retinal research in zebrafish

Abstract

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) possesses a vertebrate-type retina that is extraordinarily conserved in evolution. This well-organized and anatomically easily accessible part of the central nervous system has been widely investigated in zebrafish, promoting general understanding of retinal development, morphology, function and associated diseases. Over the recent years, genome and protein engineering as well as imaging techniques have experienced revolutionary advances and innovations, creating new possibilities and methods to study zebrafish development and function. In this review, we focus on some of these emerging technologies and how they may impact retinal research in the future. We place an emphasis on genetic techniques, such as transgenic approaches and the revolutionizing new possibilities in genome editing.

Looking to the future of zebrafish as a model to understand the genetic basis of eye disease

“…Indeed, due to the accessibility of fish embryos and their amenability to imaging and manipulation, much of what we know on eye formation from a mechanistic point of view has been learned from studying fish models. We will not attempt here to review in detail those studies, since many excellent reviews on many aspects of eye research in fish have been recently published and we refer readers to them (Angueyra and Kindt 2018; Bazin-Lopez et al 2015; Blanco-Sanchez et al 2017; Cavodeassi 2018; Chhetri et al 2014; Fuhrmann 2010; Fuhrmann et al 2014; Gestri et al 2012; Giger and Houart 2018; Martinez-Morales et al 2017; Moreno-Marmol et al 2018; Niklaus and Neuhauss 2017; Richardson et al 2017; Sinn and Wittbrodt 2013; Stenkamp 2015; Wan and Goldman 2016; Zheng et al 2018; and others).…”

Expression and distribution of synaptotagmin isoforms in the zebrafish retina

“…Zebrafish are a powerful animal model to study the nervous system in general and the retina specifically. First, there are multiple available toolboxes for the manipulation of genes of interest (Kawakami, 2007;Ablain et al, 2015;Kawakami et al, 2016;Niklaus & Neuhauss, 2017;Wierson et al, 2020). Second, zebrafish husbandry is relatively easy, mating has high yields and development is fast when compared to mammalian models.…”

Zebrafish: from genes and neurons to circuits, behavior and disease

“…In this issue, we present reviews of the development and function of the peripheral and central visual system (Niklaus & Neuhauss, 2017;Robles, 2017), including a special focus on cGMP-dependent photoreceptor degeneration (Iribarne & Masai, 2017). We also share updates on the molecular basis of function of two other sensory cell types: acousticolateralis hair cells (Nicolson, 2017), and a novel type of sensor localized in the spinal cord of vertebrates, the cerebrospinal fluidcontacting neuron (Djenoune & Wyart, 2017).…”

“…Historically, behaviors that were amenable to analysis involved simple yet robust reflexes such as startle responses. Although these reflexive behaviors are still important in testing sensory or motor function (Nicolson, 2017;Niklaus & Neuhauss, 2017), other types of behaviors integrating sensory and motor aspects, such as dark avoidance (Wagle, Nguyen, Lee, Zaitlen, & Guo, 2017) and food intake (Allen et al, 2017) are being added to the growing list of quantifiable responses in zebrafish larvae. These developments are facilitating the discovery of novel genes or the generation of new zebrafish models of human neurological diseases.…”