Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 27, 2026

Dissection of a Mouse Eye for a Whole Mount of the Retinal Pigment Epithelium
Published on: February 27, 2011
Implications of DNA leakage in eyes of mutant mice
Alexander J Ogilvy1, Defen Shen, Yujuan Wang
1Laboratory of Immunology, National Eye Institute , Bethesda, MA , USA and.
Abstract:
Extranuclear DNA (enDNA) is not well studied ultrastructurally in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). We analyzed the retina and vastus medialis muscle of four mouse strains that are related to focal retinal degeneration by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and EM immunolabeling. Evaluation of enDNA would imply the involvements of enDNA is either limited to the affected tissue or generalized in the whole body. Ultrastructural analysis and EM immunolabeling revealed that enDNA was present in the RPE cells but not in the muscle. These data suggest that enDNA could be unique to unhealthy RPE and a potential biomarker for cellular abnormality.
Related Concept Videos
Lethal Alleles
Lucien Cuénot discovered lethal alleles in 1905 while studying the inheritance of coat color in mice. The agouti gene is responsible for the color of the coat in mice. This gene codes for an agouti-signaling protein, which is responsible for melanin distribution in mammals. The wild-type allele gives rise to gray-brown coat color in mice, while the mutant allele gives rise to yellow coat color. In addition to coat color, the agouti gene is associated with the yellow...
In-vitro Mutagenesis
Genetic Lingo
Position-effect Variegation
Mutations

