P0130 NEUROCHEMICAL ALTERATIONS OF THE PRIMARY VISUAL AREAS IN EXPERIMENTAL MODELS WITH CYCLOPIA

Resumen

Introduction: ethanol intake by pregnant women can cause fetal alcoholsyndrome. One of the most serious consequences is cyclopia, originated bylack of the splitting of the eyes. The cyclopic phenotype is easily inducedon zebrafish embryos by ethanol treatment. The same phenotype appears onmutant animals cyc m294.Objectives: the purpose of our research is to analyze the changes in theneurochemical organization of primary visual areas during development ofboth ethanol induced cyclopic specimens and cyc m294 mutants.Materials & methods: the study was carried out with three days postfertilization embryos in three research groups: wild-type, treated with 1.5%ethanol and cyc m294 non treated mutants. We analyzed the distribution ofcalretinin, tirosyne-hydroxylase and pax6 with the inmunohistochemical ABCmethod. All the procedures followed the European directives (86/609/EEC and2003/65/EC) and the Spanish legislation (RD 1201/2005, BOE 252/34367-91,2005) for the use and care of animals in research.Results: we have observed expression of the analyzed markers in the primaryvisual areas: retina, preoptic area, thalamus, pretectum and optic tectum. Theexpression of calretinin presents some differences between wild-type animalsand both cyclopic models, like bigger expression in the pretectum and optictectum in wild-type animals. The expression for tyrosine-hydroxylase andpax6 is very similar in the different zones, without significant variationsbetween the experimental groups.Discussion & conclusion: we can conclude that the alterations observed in thecyc m294 mutants are comparable to those developed by the ethanol-treatedembryos, and they could be used as analogous experimental models in thestudy of the visual morphogenesis and its alterations.