A Visually Guided Swim Assay for Mouse Models of Human Retinal Disease Recapitulates the Multi-luminance Mobility Test in Humans

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a visually guided swim assay (VGSA) for measuring vision in mouse retinal disease models comparable to the multi-luminance mobility test (MLMT) utilized in human clinical trials.

Methods: Three mouse retinal disease models were studied: Bardet-Biedl syndrome type 1 (), = 5; Bardet-Biedl syndrome type 10 (), = 11; and X linked retinoschisis (retinoschisin knockout; KO), = 5. Controls were normally-sighted mice, = 10. Eyeless mice, n = 4, were used to determine the performance of animals without vision in VGSA.

Results: Eyeless mice had a VGSA time-to-platform (TTP) 7X longer than normally-sighted controls ( < 0.0001). Controls demonstrated no difference in their TTP in both lighting conditions; the same was true for . At 4-6 M, KO and had longer TTP in the dark than controls ( = 0.0156 and = 1.23 × 10, respectively). At 9-11 M, both BBS models had longer TTP than controls in light and dark with times similar to ( < 0.0001), demonstrating progressive vision loss in BBS models, but not in controls nor in KO. At 1 M, ERG light-adapted (cone) amplitudes were nonrecordable, resulting in a floor effect. VGSA did not reach a floor until 9-11 M. ERG combined rod/cone b-wave amplitudes were nonrecordable in all three mutant groups at 9-11 M, but VGSA still showed differences in visual function. ERG values correlate non-linearly with VGSA, and VGSA measured the continual decline of vision.

Conclusion: ERG is no longer a useful endpoint once the nonrecordable level is reached. VGSA differentiates between different levels of vision, different ages, and different disease models even after ERG is nonrecordable, similar to the MLMT in humans.