Abstract
Retinal regeneration has been studied for decades in nonmammalian species. From these studies, we learned that retinal Müller glia are a potential source of neuronal regeneration by de novo neurogenesis. Although spontaneous regeneration in mammals is absent after retinal damage, we discovered that certain manipulations stimulate a limited regenerative program in adult mice. This allows the study of cellular and molecular barriers that limit regeneration in mice and man as well as to compare it to regenerative species with more complete repair—like fish and birds. Thereby, it may offer novel means to the better understanding of retinal regeneration and develop successful therapies of retinal diseases. In this chapter, we describe the methods to study Müller glia-derived regeneration in adult mice in vivo and discuss potential caveats.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the past and present members of the Reh lab for help on paving the way to study retinal regeneration in mice in vivo. This work was supported by grants to MOK (DFG KA 2794/1-1, CRTD, and ProRetina Germany) and TAR (NIH R01 EY 021482).
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Karl, M.O., Reh, T.A. (2012). Studying the Generation of Regenerated Retinal Neuron from Müller Glia in the Mouse Eye. In: Wang, SZ. (eds) Retinal Development. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 884. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-848-1_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-848-1_15
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