Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Optometry have found rod cell protein GARP2 may accelerate retinal degeneration, leading to blindness in diseases like retinitis pigmentosa, and have also proposed a uniform standard for mouse optical coherence tomography (OCT) nomenclature labeling to help facilitate comparisons of OCT results.
According to researchers, their study showed GARP2 accelerates retinal degeneration in mice that lack another rod cell protein involved in producing the electrical signal. However, they did find when both rod cell proteins GARP2 and GARP1 were present, GARP1 appeared to slow the negative effect of GARP2, suggesting the two proteins have distinct and separate roles in the rod photoreceptors.
Additionally, the investigators used their study to develop a uniform standard for mouse OCT nomenclature labeling, which so far has reportedly been incomplete and inconsistent between groups of researchers and often in conflict with the recently established human OCT nomenclature. Researchers believe a standard nomenclature for OCT imaging of mice will help speed the translation of laboratory findings to clinical utility.
The study was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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Source: UAB School of Optometry