Customized Rodent Models of Geographic Atrophy

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Geographic atrophy (GA) animal models offer the potential to explore disease mechanisms and evaluate new therapies. To meet researchers' needs and accelerate the development of new therapies for GA, Ace Therapeutics has successfully developed a validated rodent model of geographic atrophy. This helps our global customers to better study GA mechanisms and design therapeutic studies.

Rodent Models of Geographic Atrophy

What Is Geographic Atrophy?

Geographic atrophy (GA) is an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes of blindness and vision loss. GA is typically characterized by irreversible damage to the single layer of cells below the neural retina, called the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), and loss of the photoreceptors above. Its pathogenesis is a complex process whose pathophysiology remains largely unknown to researchers, and there are no effective treatments.

Fig. 1. Anatomy of the retina and funduscopy showing geographic atrophy (GA) alongside laser-induced GA-like lesions in mouse eyes. (Ratnayaka JA, et al., 2020)

Service Overview

Geographic atrophy (GA) is an advanced stage of age-related macular degeneration with unknown pathogenesis and no effective therapy. As an innovative eye disease solutions company, Ace Therapeutics is providing excellent geographic atrophy rodent models for exploring GA territory, leading to new insights into GA pathophysiology and improving the drug development process. Importantly, we can work with you at any stage of project development to expedite your project development.

Explore Ace Therapeutics' Rodent Models of Geographic Atrophy

Ace Therapeutics offers the following two rodent models of geographic atrophy to customers worldwide:

Geographic atrophy (GA) model induced by sodium iodate subretinal injection

Sodium iodate (NaIO₃) injection has been widely used as a preclinical model of RPE degeneration and GA. Researchers at Ace Therapeutics successfully model geographic atrophy in rats using subretinal sodium iodate injections. This model mimics photoreceptor cell loss, RPE atrophy, glial membrane formation, and choriocapillaris degeneration in GA and enables our clients to develop and test drug and progenitor cell regenerative therapies for GA. Its formation mechanism is to induce the production of reactive oxygen species, resulting in damage similar to human GA, which is an acute injury model.

Laser-induced geographic atrophy (GA) model

The geographic atrophy (GA) model induced by subretinal injection of sodium iodate does not fully recapitulate GA characteristics. Here, we also provide an additional rodent model - the laser-induced geographic atrophy (GA) model. Our researchers use an 810 nm laser to stimulate mice to develop the hallmarks of age-related RPE/photoreceptor loss in GA. This model resembles early GA-like pathology in humans and is a highly reproducible modality due to its non-invasive nature.

Available Support Services

To provide all-round service to our customers, Ace Therapeutics' highly qualified scientists also develop standard procedural protocols to test potential therapeutic strategies, and evaluate them through the following parallel methods, including but not limited to:

Spectrophotometry
Fundus photophase
Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) analysis
Ocular transformation analysis (OCT)
Tissue pathology analysis
Bioinformatics

Ace Therapeutics has been working to help global clients understand and develop highly effective treatment measures for human geographic atrophy. We provide a comprehensive rodent model of GA to further understand GA pathogenesis and explore novel therapies. 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

Ratnayaka JA, Lotery AJ. Challenges in studying geographic atrophy (GA) age-related macular degeneration: the potential of a new mouse model with GA-like features. Neural Regen Res. 2020, 15(5):863-864.
Bhutto IA, Ogura S, Baldeosingh R, et al. An Acute Injury Model for the Phenotypic Characteristics of Geographic Atrophy. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2018, 59(4): AMD143-AMD151.
Khan AH, Soundara Pandi SP, Scott JA, et al. A laser-induced mouse model of progressive retinal degeneration with central sparing displays features of parafoveal geographic atrophy. Sci Rep. 2023, 13(1):4194.

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