Fishing for gene function – endocrine modelling in the zebrafish

Abstract

The use of zebrafish (Danio rerio) in scientific research is growing rapidly. It initially became popular as a model of vertebrate development because zebrafish embryos develop rapidly and are transparent. In the past 5 years, the sequencing of the zebrafish genome has increased the profile of zebrafish research even further, expanding into other areas such as pharmacology, cancer research and drug discovery. The use of zebrafish in endocrine research has mainly been confined to the study of the development of endocrine organs. However, it is likely to be a useful model in other areas of endocrinology, as there are a wide variety of both forward and reverse genetic techniques that can be employed in the zebrafish to decipher gene function in disease states. In this review, we compare the endocrine system of the zebrafish to mouse and human, demonstrating that the systems are sufficiently similar for zebrafish to be employed as a model for endocrine research. We subsequently review the repertoire of genetic techniques commonly employed in the zebrafish model to understand gene function in vertebrate development and disease. We anticipate that the use of these techniques will make the zebrafish a prominent model in endocrine research in the coming years.

Expression of endocrine genes in zebrafish larvae in response to environmental salinity

“…Zebrafish have been extensively utilized as a model vertebrate for studies on embryogenesis and organogenesis, and the strengths of this model organism in studies an genetic approaches and the manipulation of gene expression and genome information, is that it is be adaptable for investigation of physiological functions, e.g. ionic and osmotic homeostasis (McGonnell & Fowkes 2006). Since zebrafish is a stenohaline freshwater fish that can adapt to salinity challenges in freshwater but not in seawater, we cultured the larvae in freshwater with different salinities and examined the endocrine response.…”

Adverse effects of bisphenol A on the testicular parenchyma of zebrafish revealed using histomorphological methods

“…Zebrafish are one of a group of small fish species that can be kept in the laboratory as they are easily exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in tank water at different stages in their life cycle, and exhibit a measurable sensitivity to such agents ( Van den Belt et al 2001;Orn et al 2003;McGonnell and Fowkes 2006;Molina et al 2013).…”

Endocrinology: Advances through omics and related technologies

“…Another review (Piret and Thakker, 2011) described mouse models that have been generated for the study of human hereditary and metabolic disorders. McGonnell (2006) explored the use of genetically modified zebrafish as a novel and emerging model to study the endocrine system, often replacing the most commonly used mouse model. As these models have been extensively reviewed (Dungan Lemko and Elias, 2012;Kang et al, 2014;McGonnell, 2006;Piret and Thakker, 2011), here we will focus on a fish transgenic model, the growth hormone transgenic fish, as an example of the advances in the field and the potential applications of transgenic organisms.…”