Visual phenotyping at the Institut Clinique de la Souris

Purpose Visual diseases come in many flavors, with a large variety of affected tissues (eye anterior segment, retina, optic nerve, cortex …), ages of onset, rate of progression and causal factors. In Western countries, if the majority of these diseases are now curable, millions of people are still affected by blindness or low vision, as many retinal diseases (age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma…) still lack efficient treatments. In a facility devoted to mouse phenotyping as the Mouse Clinic Institute (MCI), it is thus of major importance to propose an efficient visual phenotyping platform, to pick up visual defects in screened mutants, to assess the beneficial effects of potential treatments or the eventual adverse effects of drugs targeting the CNS. Methods Methods: Mouse mutant lines from the Eumodic European project, as well as lines from specific academic projects, go through clinical observation (slit lamp, fundus imaging) in the context of a behavioral phenotyping pipeline, or are assessed in more details with angiography, optomotor response, electroretinography, retinal histology and/or immunohistochemistry. Results To illustrate the possibilities offered by the MCI visual phenotyping platform, we will present results obtained from various projects, as well as the validation of electroretinography protocols to follow dark adaptation and the effect of acute drug injections. Conclusion In an environment allowing for an in depth phenotyping, from behavior to biochemistry, metabolism and cardiology, the MCI visual phenotyping platform provides a comprehensive set of tests to get the most out of genetically modified mice.