PUBLICATION
Systemic treatment with cigarette smoke extract affects zebrafish visual behaviour, intraocular vasculature morphology and outer segment phagocytosis
- Authors
- Gómez Sánchez, A., Colucci, P., Moran, A., Moya López, A., Colligris, B., Álvarez, Y., Kennedy, B.N.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-240129-11
- Date
- 2023
- Source
- Open research Europe 3: 4848 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Kennedy, Breandan N.
- Keywords
- Smoking, oxidative stress, retina, visual behaviour, zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
- none
- PubMed
- 38283058 Full text @ Open Res Eur
Citation
Gómez Sánchez, A., Colucci, P., Moran, A., Moya López, A., Colligris, B., Álvarez, Y., Kennedy, B.N. (2023) Systemic treatment with cigarette smoke extract affects zebrafish visual behaviour, intraocular vasculature morphology and outer segment phagocytosis. Open research Europe. 3:4848.
Abstract
Introduction Cigarette smoking adversely affects multiple aspects of human health including eye disorders such as age-related macular degeneration, cataracts and dry eye disease. However, there remains a knowledge gap in how constituents of cigarette smoke affect vision and retinal biology. We used zebrafish to assess effects of short-term acute exposure to cigarette smoke extract (CSE) on visual behaviour and retinal biology.
Methods Zebrafish larvae with a developed visual system at three days post-fertilization (dpf) were exposed to CSE for 4, 24 or 48 hours. Visual behaviour, hyaloid vasculature morphology, retinal histology, oxidative stress gene expression and outer segment phagocytosis were investigated using visual behavioural optokinetic and visual motor response assays (OKR and VMR), microscopy (light, fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy), and real-time PCR.
Results In zebrafish larvae, 48 hours of CSE treatment resulted in significantly reduced visual behaviour. Larvae treated with 10, 15 or 20 μg/mL CSE showed an average of 13.7, 10.7 or 9.4 saccades per minute, respectively, significantly lower compared with 0.05% DMSO controls (p=0.0093, p=0.0004 and p<0.0001, respectively) that exhibited 19.7 saccades per minute. The diameter of intraocular vessels increased from 4.833 μm in 0.05% DMSO controls to 5.885 μm in the 20 μg/mL CSE-treated larvae (p=0.0333). Biometry analysis highlighted a significant axial length elongation in 20 μg/mL CSE-treated larvae (216.9 μm, p<0.0001) compared to 0.05% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) controls (205.1 μm). Larvae exposed to 20 μg/mL CSE had significantly (p=0.0002) higher numbers of RPE phagosomes compared to vehicle controls (0.1425 and 0.093 phagosomes/μm RPE, respectively).
Conclusions Zebrafish larvae with a developed visual system display apparent defects in visual behaviour and retinal biology after acute exposure to CSE, establishing a valuable in vivo model to investigate ocular disorders related to cigarette smoke.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping