Research progress in the reprogramming of retinal Müller glia cells / 解剖学报

[Abstract] Blinding eye diseases caused by retinal degeneration have a detrimental effect on human health. Mammalian retina exhibits very limited capacity for self-repair after degenerative disease or injury. In contrast, zebrafish retina possesses a robust regenerative response that regenerates all types of retinal neurons and restores vision. Retina regeneration in zebrafish depends on a type of glia cells called Müller glia. Following retinal injury, zebrafish Müller glia undergo a reprogramming process and proliferate into multipotent progenitor cells that further differentiate into newborn retinal neurons. In recent years, significant progress has been made in the field of Müller glia-based retina regeneration. Here we summarize the mechanisms governing zebrafish retina regeneration and the recent advances in mammalian Müller glia reprogramming.

An improved method for in vivo electroporation of morpholinos into the adult zebrafish retina / 生理学报

In vivo electroporation of morpholinos (MOs) into the retina of adult zebrafish is an efficient method to study gene function related to retinal disease and regeneration. However, the currently reported methods are complicated with low MO transfer efficiency and high probability to cause collateral damage. The present study was aimed to optimize the existing MO electroporation methods. Two major changes were made to MO electroporation procedure in zebrafish retina. One was to coat the inner side of the electrode with ultrasonic gel. The other was to replace the commonly used round electrode with novel rectangular one. The results showed that the use of ultrasonic gel reduced collateral damage caused by retinal electroporation and simplified the experimental procedure. The rectangular electrode significantly increased transfection efficiency of MO electroporation. In particular, knocking down the expression of Ascl1a in the retina by using our method significantly inhibited the generation of retinal progenitor cells. These results suggest our method is the optimization of the current MO electroporation methods and may be a better alternative for relevant researchers.