Research

The overarching research aim of my laboratory is to understand how a healthy eye is built and maintained throughout life. More specifically, we are interested in how glial cells, the major support cells in the nervous system, are patterned and shaped during development to support neurons. We are also interested in what happens when the intricate glia-neuronal relationship breaks down due to increasing age or disease.

The retina is the light sensitive part of the eye that allows you to see. We use the zebrafish retina as a model as it contains the same neuron types and glial cells as the human eye. The zebrafish embryo is an incredible system to study development – it is transparent, we can label each cell with specific fluorescent markers and use time-lapse confocal microscopy to watch eye development happen in real time in a living fish! In addition to imaging we use CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis, RNA-sequencing and molecular biology to uncover and explore fundamental mechanisms of glial biology.

We are now interested in determining the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating glial morphogenesis, with a particular focus on the consequences of disrupted glial contacts on neuronal function.

Click the buttons below to learn more about our different research topics. Visit our Resources page to access tools, protocols and view our antibody and transgenic line data.

 To view our images and movies use the buttons below.

Current members

MacDonald Lab News 

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SELECTED Publications (Full list)

2025

Yaniv Z et al. 2025. The IBEX Imaging Knowledge-Base: A Community Resource Enabling Adoption and Development of Immunofluorescence Imaging Methods. eLife. 14:RP105737.https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.105737.1

Radtke AJ et al. 2025. The IBEX Knowledge-Base: A central resource for multiplexed imaging techniques. PLoS Biol. 23(3): e3003070. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003070

Farger E, Keatinge M, Pearce O, Piepponen P, Paula P, van Eden F, MacDonald RB, Bandmann O. 2025. A zebrafish model of acmsd deficiency does not support a prominent role for ACMSD in Parkinson’s disease. npj Parkinsons Dis. 11:118. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-025-00940-1

2024

Bergmans S§, Noel NCL§, Masin L, Harding E, Krzywanska AM, Rajagopal A, Hu CK, Arckens L, Ruzycki PA*, MacDonald RB*, Clark BS*, Moons L*. 2024. Age-related dysregulation of the retinal transcriptome in the African turquoise killifish. Aging Cell:e14192.
https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.14192 *Co-senior corresponding authors.

Kothurkar A§, Patient GS, Noel NCL, Krzywanska AM, Carr BJ, Chu CJ*, MacDonald RB*. 2024. Iterative Bleaching Extends Multiplexity (IBEX) Imaging facilitates simultaneous identification of all cell types in the vertebrate retina. Journal of Cell Science. 137(23):jcs263407. https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.263407 *Corresponding authors. Cover Article. Research highlight: https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.263407. Tutorial: Link YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXuVVDuk18k.

Jaroszynska N§, Salzinger A§, Tsarouchas T, Becker CG, Becker T, Lyons D, MacDonald RB*, Keatinge M*. 2024. C9ORF72 deficiency results in degeneration of the zebrafish retina in vivo. J. Neurosci, e2128232024; https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2024/04/22/JNEUROSCI.2128-23.2024 *Co- corresponding authors.

2023

Uttley K, Papanastasiou AS, Lahne M, Brisbane J, MacDonald RB, Bickmore WA, Bhatia S. 2023. Unique functions of two overlapping PAX6 retinal enhancers. Life Science Alliance. 6(11):e20230212. https://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.202302126 *Co- corresponding author.

Keatinge M§, Gegg ME§, Watson L, Mortiboys H, Bui H, Lefeber DJ, van Rens A, MacDonald RB*, Bandmann O*. 2023. Unexpected phenotypic and molecular changes of combined glucocerebrosidase and acid sphingomyelinase deficiency. Disease models and mechanisms. https://journals.biologists.com/dmm/article/16/6/dmm049954/308903/ *Co- corresponding author.

Kugler E, Bravo I, Durmishi X, Marcotti S, Beqiri S, Carrington A, Stramer BM, Mattar P, MacDonald RB. 2023. GliaMorph: A modular image analysis toolkit to quantify Müller glial cell morphology. Development: 150(3):dev201008. https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.201008

Kugler E*, Breitenbach E-M, MacDonald RB*. 2023. Glia cell morphology analysis using the Fiji GliaMorph toolkit. Current Protocols. *Co- corresponding author. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpz1.654.

2022

Martins RR, Zamzam M, Moosajee M, Thummel R, Henriques CM*, MacDonald RB*. 2022. Müller Glia maintain their regenerative potential despite degeneration in the aged zebrafish retina. Aging Cell. 21:e13597. *Co- corresponding author. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13597

Larbalestier H, Keatinge M, Watson L, White E, Gowda S, Wei W, Koler K, Semenova SA, Rimmer N, Sweeney ST, Mazzolini J, Sieger D, McDearmid J, Panula P, MacDonald RB*, Bandmann O*. 2022. GCH1 Deficiency Activates Brain Innate Immune Response and Impairs Tyrosine Hydroxylase Homeostasis. J Neurosci. 42(4):702-716. *Co-corresponding authors. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0653-21.2021

Schlaeppi A, Adams W, Haase R, Huisken J, MacDonald RB, Eliceiri K and Kugler E. 2022. Meeting in the middle: towards successful multidisciplinary bioimage analysis collaborations. Frontiers in Bioinformatics. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbinf.2022.889755

Jurisch-Yaksi N, Kugler EC, MacDonald RB, Mosimann C, and Yaksi E. 2022. Microscopy techniques in zebrafish. RMS inFocus. https://www.rms.org.uk/resource/elisabeth-kugler-pdf.html

Contact

 Our work is generously supported by the following funders: