Cell death in hereditary retinal degeneration is predominantly non-apoptotic.

<p>In 10 out of 10 animal models for hereditary retinal degeneration, large numbers of photoreceptors display cGMP accumulation, HDAC and PARP activity, PAR accumulation, and calpain activity, respectively. Intriguingly, these non-apoptotic markers are prominent even in the S334ter retina, concomitant with this also showing signs of apoptosis. This suggests that in S334ter retina two different cell death mechanisms may run in parallel while in all other studied RD models the mutation-induced cell death followed a non-apoptotic mechanism. Scale bar 20 µm.