Mirabile dictu, a team of researchers discovered 261 new genes tied to blindness and other eye diseases. The findings could help in identifying new causes of hereditary blindness. The research is part of the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium, the goal of which is to single out a function for every gene in the mouse genome.

“In 2018, if someone has a form of hereditary blindness, we can identify the cause 50 to 75 percent of the time,” said Ala Moshiri, associate professor of ophthalmology and vision science in the School of Medicine and Eye Center at the University of California, Davis. “In the remaining cases, we know the mutation is there, but we don’t know where to look. Now eye centers that do DNA sequencing can call back patients and screen them for these new genes.”

The findings appear in Nature Communications Biology.

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“Team Links 261 Genes to Blindness and Vision Problems”