The National Eye Institute grant comes under the auspices of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the national economic stimulus package signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Myopia, or nearsightedness, continues to pose a significant health problem with increasing prevalence and high morbidity related to pathological complications associated with high myopia. Dr. Tkatchenko’s long-term goal is to characterize the genetic network that regulates the size of the eye during postnatal development. His objective is to develop a mouse model of myopia for further study of the condition.

Significant progress in the mouse genome project and established technology for controlled manipulation of the genome makes the mouse an attractive species in which to characterize these genes and study their role in postnatal eye plasticity, he said.

Myopia has been studied for the last 32 years using animal models. These studies were conducted using monkeys, tree shrews, chickens and several other mammalian species, and the myopia was induced with diffusers or negative spectacle lenses. Using a monkey model of myopia, Dr. Tkatchenko found evidence for genetic regulation of myopia and identified several previously unknown candidate genes localized to chromosomal areas linked to human myopia. Further characterization of these genes in a monkey model, however, is limited because controlled manipulation of the monkey genome is not possible, he explained.

The only species in which researchers can perform a serious molecular genetics study is the mouse, but mice are not obvious candidates for a study on refractive eye development because they are nocturnal and have low visual acuity.

Although several recent studies -- including results from Dr. Tkatchenko’s lab -- suggest experimental myopia can be induced in mice, a detailed analysis of normal refractive eye development and response of the mouse eye to distortion of visual input is necessary to establish the feasibility of using mice for myopia research.

He will analyze normal refractive development of the mouse eye and the effect of diffusers on refractive development under different lighting conditions. This will optimize experimental conditions for induction of myopia in mice. He will also analyze the effect of diffusers on refractive eye development in various mouse strains to provide information about the role genetic background plays in myopia development.

“We expect that we will be able to optimize experimental conditions for induction of myopia in mice and find mouse strains that are most susceptible to development of experimental myopia,” Dr. Tkatchenko said.

Development of a mouse model of myopia will open new avenues for research, he said, leading to more advance molecular genetics studies. “Such molecular genetics studies are expected to provide new critical information about signaling cascades that are involved in refractive eye development and development of myopia. This will lead to development of pharmacological means to control and prevent myopia in humans.”