Algae restored sight to mice blind from birth

<url>Scientists have managed to endow mice with congenital blindness with vision thanks to ion channels from photosensitive algae.

American and Swiss physiologists have worked on genetically modified mice that completely lack photoreceptors in the retina.

Vision, like any other type of sensitivity, is provided by the excitation of nerve cells, followed by the transmission of an impulse to the central nervous system. To excite – to change the charge of the cell membrane – it is necessary to open ion channels through which sodium and potassium ions will go to/ from the cell, but this happens only when a photon of light falls on the photosensitive pigment.

The ChR2 gene from a green algae encoding a photosensitive ion channel was artificially inserted into the bipolar retinal cells of mice genetically deprived of this possibility. As a result, the mice gained vision, which, although significantly inferior in quality to the usual, but allows them to better navigate in space.

Taking into account the large number of congenital and acquired diseases associated with the loss of photoreceptors in the retina, the experiment of Pamela Lagali and her colleagues is encouraging hundreds of thousands of patients. The results of the work have been accepted for publication in Nature Neuroscience.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru29.04.2008