Investigative ophthalmology & visual science
-
Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. · May 2000
Characterization of rhodopsin mis-sorting and constitutive activation in a transgenic rat model of retinitis pigmentosa.
To determine the extent to which rhodopsin mis-sorting and constitutive activation of the phototransduction cascade contribute to retinal degeneration in a transgenic rat model of retinitis pigmentosa. ⋯ Because dark rearing Ser334ter rats results in little rescue, it is concluded that constitutive activation of the phototransduction cascade does not contribute significantly to photoreceptor cell death in this rat model. The nature of the rhodopsin sorting defect and the correlation between the severity of mis-sorting and rate of cell death indicate that truncated rhodopsin may cause apoptosis by interfering with normal cellular machinery in the post-Golgi transport pathway or in the plasma membrane.