Mouse Models of Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma in the MICRON Literature

About the MICRON Research Literature

These research pages organize published studies using MICRON imaging systems by animal species and the disease or condition investigated.

All publication counts and figures reflect the complete indexed research collection.

Explore related studies through the MICRON Research Hubs or search the complete publication collection in the reSEARCH portal.

Understanding Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma

Primary open-angle glaucoma is a chronic progressive optic neuropathy with characteristic optic-disc and retinal-nerve-fiber-layer damage, often accompanied by corresponding visual-field loss as disease progresses, while the iridocorneal angle remains open.

Intraocular pressure is a treatable risk factor rather than part of that definition, and the disease is chronic and adult-onset, established over years of follow-up.

Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma in Experimental Research

The mouse lines that carry this label in the literature include DBA/2J and myocilin Y437H transgenics, and neither reproduces the defining combination:

• DBA/2J develops a pigment-dispersing iris disease whose atrophy and released pigment change the angle itself before pressure rises, which sits closer to a secondary pigmentary glaucoma than to an open and structurally unremarkable angle
• The Y437H transgenic carries a human open-angle mutation whose ocular phenotype has been reported as absent on several genetic backgrounds

A paper can also reach this facet by discussing human open-angle glaucoma while its animal work uses induced pressure elevation or a fluorescent reporter line on an ordinary inbred background, so the strain and the methods of an individual paper, rather than the facet label, establish whether an open-angle model was used.

What a mouse eye does supply is pressure-sensitive retinal ganglion cell loss and axonal injury at the optic nerve head, both followable in the living animal by cross-sectional imaging, ganglion cell labeling and electrophysiology. What it does not supply is the perimetric visual field used clinically to quantify functional loss and progression, nor a collagenous lamina cribrosa, the rodent optic nerve head carrying a glial lamina in its place.

Mouse Models of Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma

The mouse carries most of this work.

Transgenic and knockout lines allow a pathway to be removed or overexpressed, and cost, availability, short generation time and a large body of background data reinforce the choice.

A genetic manipulation constrains rather than isolates a mechanism: developmental compensation and pleiotropy remain possible.

Published MICRON Research: Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma in Mice

This page lists 3 papers from the MICRON literature, published 2016 to 2025, that study primary open-angle glaucoma in mice.

Of these publications:

• 3 studies used mice as the primary primary open-angle glaucoma disease model.

Scope of the literature collection: Publication counts reflect studies identified and indexed in the MICRON research corpus. This collection is not intended to represent an exhaustive review of all published primary open-angle glaucoma research.

Which imaging and experimental techniques are used in these studies?

Technique counts are paper-level co-occurrences and do not necessarily indicate that a technique was applied to the focal species or focal disease model.

Capabilities and Limitations of Imaging Techniques

A summary of what each imaging technique listed above can measure, the information it provides, and its limitations in research applications.

Intravitreal Injection / Delivery

Injection into the vitreous places a substance directly into the vitreous at a known administered dose and chosen time, reducing but not eliminating systemic exposure. The injectate may be a therapeutic compound, cell preparation or viral vector, or an agent used to create the model, such as a toxin, vasoactive or excitotoxic compound, or infectious inoculum. The route bypasses surface-delivery barriers and provides direct access to the vitreous and posterior segment, but the concentration reached in a particular ocular tissue depends on distribution and clearance and is not fixed by the injected dose alone. It is invasive and discrete: each repeat dose or challenge requires another injection, and vehicle- or sham-injected controls can help separate effects of the injectate from effects of the procedure.

Optical Coherence Tomography

Optical coherence tomography provides high-resolution, cross-sectional images of ocular tissues in the living eye, allowing researchers to visualize structures at different depths. OCT is particularly useful for measuring tissue thickness, identifying structural abnormalities, and assessing the location and extent of tissue changes.

As a non-invasive imaging technique, OCT enables repeated measurements in the same eye over time, supporting longitudinal studies of disease progression and treatment response. Although OCT provides detailed structural information, it does not directly measure cellular activity or visual function. Tissue that appears structurally normal may still have functional abnormalities, making OCT a valuable companion to functional assessments such as electroretinography (ERG).

Which MICRON systems and add-ons appear?

Which strains and genetic lines are used?

What other conditions are recorded on the same papers?

Which MICRON configurations appear in this work?

Configurations recorded in these papers, and the techniques recorded alongside them.

The papers

Browse all hubs at MICRON Research Hubs. The full corpus is searchable in the reSEARCH portal.