Since blindness in people can also be caused by nonworking
rod cells, the treatment could be a step toward sight for humans too, says Swaroop.
By selectively modulating the visual cycle in
rod cells, we believe that ACU-4429 protects cone cells and by extension protects visual acuity.
When using averted vision you are using the light sensitivity of those outer-lying
rod cells.
Those mice with newly transplanted
rod cells were able to use a visual cue to quickly find a hidden platform in the maze whereas untreated mice were able to find the hidden platform only by chance after extensive exploration of the maze.
Scientists at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich in Germany and colleagues discovered the unusual DNA arrangement while investigating genes in the
rod cells of mouse eyes, says Boris Joffe, one of the authors of the new study, which appears in the April 17 Cell.
In doing so, ACU-4429 is able to successfully reduce the activity of the rod system - even when not being used for night vision,
rod cells are critical to human sight, sending essentially unused information to the brain and creating toxic by-products - and decrease the rate of toxic by-product accumulation.
In many amphibians, one type of
rod cells called green rods naturally express a blue cone pigment, as do blue cones," said Yau.
The blinding disease results from mutations in the gene RPE65, which encodes a protein that helps
rod cells in the eye recycle light-gathering pigments.
Rod cells are very sensitive to light and allow night vision.
