Stock Photo - A genetic disorder of the nervous system, neurofibromatosis causes tumors to form on nerves throughout the body, including a type of tumor called optic nerve glioma that can lead to childhood blindness. The image was used to activate the unique imaging capabilities of one of our most recent (at the time) laser scanning microscopes and is of a wild-type (normal) mouse retina in the fiber optic layer. This layer is responsible for transmitting information from the retina to the brain and was fluorescently stained to reveal the distribution of glial cells (green), DNA and RNA in the cell bodies of retinal ganglion neurons (orange ) and their optic nerve fibers (red). ), and actin in endothelial cells show a prominent branching blood vessel (blue). By studying the microscopic structure of the normal and diseased retina and optic nerves, we should better understand the altered tissue biology of these tumors with the prospect of developing therapeutic interventions.