Background: Controversially, histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are in clinical trial for the treatment of inherited retinal degenerations. Previous studies report that patients suffering from Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) show improved visual field and acuity following treatment with the HDAC inhibitor valproic acid (VPA) (Clemson, Tzekov et al. 2011). However, other studies disagree with these findings (van Schooneveld, van den Born et al. 2011) and (Bhalla, Joshi et al. 2013). Thus, we sought to determine if treatment with HDACi rescued visual function and retinal morphology in a blind zebrafish dying-on-edge (dye) mutant identified from a forward genetics screen.
