Guiding Sight

Your eyes look at the world but it's your brain that sees it. This is thanks to your optic nerve, which connects to nerve cells in the backs of your eyes (retina) to deliver their messages to your brain for interpretation. Development of the optic nerve involves the gene Dcc. Researchers now probe what Dcc is doing here using confocal microscopy (pictured) to image nerve cells in the eyes. In mutant mice lacking Dcc in their eyes, projections from nerve cells within the retina failed to connect up to the optic nerve (bottom) as occurs in normal mouse eyes (top, left). Instead, projections stalled or went in the opposite direction, similar to mutant mice lacking the protein, netrin, which is known to guide nerve cells (top, right). Dcc is therefore vital in properly wiring up the eyes to the brain.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image adapted from work by Robin J. Vigouroux and colleagues
• Institut de la Vision, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, INSERM, CNRS, Paris, France
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, February 2020