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Retinal degeneration and transplantation in the Royal College of Surgeons rat

Eye volume 12, pages 597–604 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

The Royal College of Surgeons rat provides a valuable animal model for examining the ontogeny of inherited or acquired photoreceptor degeneration and for assessing various treatment paradigms. Here we describe a sequence of events in which photoreceptor loss induces secondary changes that ultimately result in a progressive loss of retinal ganglion cells. The functional consequences of photoreceptor loss are described and compared with those observed in dystrophic animals that received grafts of pigment epithelial cells at an early stage in the degenerative process. The results of this work suggest that transplantation might slow or halt the progress of photoreceptor loss in certain human retinal degenerative conditions, provided suitable safeguards have been put in place.

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Institute of Ophthalmology, 11-43 Bath Street, London, EC1V 9EL, UK

    R D Lund, J M Lawrence, T M Litchfield, Y Sauve & S J O Whiteley

  2. Laboratorio Oftalmologia Experimental, Facultad de Medicina, Universitad de Murcia, Espinardo Murcia, 30.100, Spain

    M P Villegas-Pérez

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    P J Coffey

Authors
  1. R D Lund
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  2. J M Lawrence
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  3. M P Villegas-Pérez
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  4. T M Litchfield
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  5. Y Sauve
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  6. S J O Whiteley
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  7. P J Coffey
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Our work has primarily been funded by the Medical Research Council (UK), Foundation Fighting Blindness (USA) and Action Research (UK)

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Lund, R., Lawrence, J., Villegas-Pérez, M. et al. Retinal degeneration and transplantation in the Royal College of Surgeons rat. Eye 12, 597–604 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/eye.1998.150

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/eye.1998.150

Keywords

  • RCS rat
  • Retinal degeneration
  • Retinal pigment epithelium
  • Transplantation
  • Visual function

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