NEI Study Shows How Genes in Retina Get Regulated During Development
Using models of a retina grown in the lab, researchers at the National Eye Institute say they have mapped the 3D organization of genetic material of key developmental stages of human retinal formation. The findings lay a foundation for understanding clinical traits in many eye diseases, and reveal a highly dynamic process by which the architecture of chromatin—the DNA and proteins that form chromosomes—regulates gene expression. The findings were published in Cell Reports.
“These results provide insights into the heritable genetic landscape of the developing human retina, especially for the most abundant cell types that are commonly associated with vision impairment in retinal diseases,” Anand Swaroop, PhD, the study’s lead investigator and chief of the Neurobiology, Neurodegeneration, and Repair Laboratory at the NEI, said in an NEI article.