Drug Screening to Treat Early-Onset Eye Diseases: Can Zebrafish Expedite the Discovery?

The molecular basis of many early-onset eye diseases has been uncovered, but the number of available drug treatments for improving deteriorated vision is still scarce. Consequently, there is a high demand for new drugs to treat these diseases. This review first provides a brief synopsis of the use of zebrafish model for screening drugs with vision benefits. In particular, visual-motor response, the activity response of larvae to a change in light stimuli, is proposed to serve as a simple and efficient tool for screening drugs that may improve vision in various zebrafish visual mutants. The second part of the review discusses the identification of novel drug candidates, with particular emphasis on naturally derived chemicals including traditional Chinese medicines and nutritional therapies on retinal degenerative diseases. Many of these chemicals have been used in neuroprotection and/or have been consumed by many populations for good health and vision; thus, the screening of these chemicals with various zebrafish visual mutants would expedite the development of novel drugs for treating early-onset eye diseases.