Spatial pattern of retinal cones in avian retina: ¿a matter of sex or chance?

FOSSER, N.S.; LOCATELLI CAMPAGNO, LUCIANO J.; HEREDIA, J.; RODRÍGUEZ, T.; PAGANELLI, ALEJANDRA R.; RÍOS, H

Congreso; 10th International Meeting of the LASDB; 2019

It is known that there is a spatial pattern of photoreceptors in the retina ofvertebrates, which is based on the spatial distribution of cones and rods. In manyspecies, this pattern of distribution allows us to distinguish an organization of the"mosaic" type from the different cones subtypes. The retina of birds has a highlysophisticated photoreceptor system consisting of rods and five types of cones.The questions that arise are: how do these patterns develop? could be describethese pattern in terms of spatial relationships? Is there sexual dimorphism in thatdistribution, that explains the different behaviors between male and femaleanimals?Our group have been working looking for some answers to these previousquestions through the analyzes of cone and rod spatial pattern in a domestic and awild bird species. We perform different morphometric analyzes to evaluate thequantity, density and diameter of the photoreceptor mosaic. We also studied byWestern Blot the different opsins of cones and canes. Finally, a univariate andbivariate statistical analysis was performed. The latter gave us information aboutthe spatial relationship between the different photoreceptors.Our preliminary data suggest that, from the point of view of the morphometric,biochemical and spatial distribution, there are only poor significant intraspecificdifferences between male and female animals. However, these differences aresignificant when an analysis is made between different species.