1. Housing RCS rats under specific pathogen-free conditions mildly ameliorates retinal degeneration and alters intestine microbiota
- Author
-
Hadas Ketter-Katz, Rawan Saeed, Ifat Sher, Gali Altmann, Tal Shadi, Shada Dallasheh, Yael Lustig-Barzelay, Amit Sabo, George Jejelava, Rotem Hadar, Gilat Efroni, Amnon Amir, Tzipi Braun, Yael Haberman, and Ygal Rotenstreich
- Subjects
Retinitis pigmentosa ,Microbiome ,RCS rats ,Retinal degeneration ,Photoreceptors ,Medicine ,Science - Abstract
Abstract Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a genetic blinding disease with over 80 causative genes. Disease progression varies between patients with similar genetic backgrounds. We assessed the association between environment, gut microbiota, and retinal degeneration in the RP rat model Royal College of Surgeons (RCS). The rats were born and raised for two generations under specific pathogen-free (SPF, n = 69) or non-SPF conditions (n = 48). At the age of four weeks, SPF rats had significantly shorter dark-adapted a-wave and dark and light-adapted b-wave implicit times by electroretinogram (p = 0.014, p = 9.5*10−6, p = 0.009, respectively). The SPF rats had significantly less photoreceptor apoptosis at ages four, eight, and twelve weeks (all p
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
- View/download PDF