Hereditary Retinal Degeneration (RD) and The Canine Models

Hereditary retinal degenerative diseases are a group of genetically and phenotypically heterogeneous disorders that are one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. Recent advances in molecular genetics and cell biology using large animal models elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying these diseases are helping to identify new therapeutic approaches, such as gene therapy, stem cell therapy, and optogenetics. Canines are the primary species used, as idiopathic IRD is common in canine pets. Canines represent an increasingly popular animal model for ocular diseases, greatly improving our understanding of their pathogenesis. In addition to this, a significant advantage over rodents is that canine models can be utilized for intraocular drug delivery studies, surgical procedures and in vivo imaging procedures. Which helps test novel therapeutic strategies being developed to treat human patients.

Fig. 1. Histolopathology at the fovea-like area in two canine models of inherited macular degeneration. (Beltran WA, et al., 2014)

Service Overview

Hereditary retinal degeneration (RD) is a common cause of blindness in canines and humans. In the past few years, Ace Therapeutics has been committed to providing a comprehensive ocular disease model and service for global customers through continuous exploration and research. Canines make for an attractive model due to the significant genetic and phenotypic similarities of canine RDs to their human counterparts. This is of significant value for understanding the function of disease-causing genes, deciphering the cellular and molecular mechanisms of disease, and developing effective therapeutic strategies.

In view of this, Ace Therapeutics provides a series of canine hereditary retinal degeneration models to help you understand understand disease mechanisms and develop new treatments. Our canine hereditary retinal degeneration models include, but are not limited to:

Tab.1. Ace Therapeutics' canine models of inherited retinal degeneration.

Importantly, our ophthalmic pharmacologists also develop programmed experimental protocols to help you test novel therapeutic strategies for retinal degenerative diseases, and evaluate them with the following tools, including but not limited to:

• Functional MRI (fMRI)
• Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
• Fundoscopy
• Fluorescein angiography
• Morphological and histological assessment
• ELISA, WB, qPCR

Ace Therapeutics aims to provide global customers with a powerful experimental tool to explore novel therapies aimed at treating retinal degenerative diseases. If you are interested in our services or need more detailed information, please feel free to contact us. Our experienced scientists are ready to help you!

References

1. Beltran WA, Cideciyan AV, Guziewicz KE, et al. Canine retina has a primate fovea-like bouquet of cone photoreceptors which is affected by inherited macular degenerations. PLoS One. 2014, 9(3):e90390.
2. Beltran WA. The use of canine models of inherited retinal degeneration to test novel therapeutic approaches. Vet Ophthalmol. 2009, 12(3):192-204.
3. Winkler PA, Occelli LM, Petersen-Jones SM. Large Animal Models of Inherited Retinal Degenerations: A Review. Cells. 2020, 9(4):882.

• Customized Canine Models of Glaucoma
• Customized Canine Models of Corneal Fibrosis
• Customized Canine Models of Dry Eye Disease

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