Nothobranchius as a model for aging studies. A review

Abstract

In recent decades, the increase in human longevity has made it increasingly important to expand our knowledge on aging. To accomplish this, the use of animal models is essential, with the most common being mouse (phylogenetically similar to humans, and a model with a long life expectancy) and Caenorhabditis elegans (an invertebrate with a short life span, but quite removed from us in evolutionary terms). However, some sort of model is needed to bridge the differences between those mentioned above, achieving a balance between phylogenetic distance and life span. Fish of the genus Nothobranchius were suggested 10 years ago as a possible alternative for the study of the aging process. In the meantime, numerous studies have been conducted at different levels: behavioral (including the study of the rest-activity rhythm), populational, histochemical, biochemical and genetic, among others, with very positive results. This review compiles what we know about Nothobranchius to date, and examines its future prospects as a true alternative to the classic models for studies on aging.

Population-, sex- and individual level divergence in life-history and activity patterns in an annual killifish

“…Adaptive inactivity might, therefore, represent an energy-conserving strategy when the costs of being active exceed the benefits (Siegel, 2009). Whereas Nothobranchius killifish exhibit stable locomotor rhythms and are diurnal (i.e., they exhibit nocturnal periods of inactivity) (Lucas-Sánchez et al, 2013; Lucas-Sánchez et al, 2014), future research should aim to assess day-round (24 h) patterns of activity to get a more complete image of daily activity changes.…”

“…Although Nothobranchius species have been proposed as promising model organisms for studying the effects of senescence on the circadian system (Lucas-Sánchez et al, 2014), variation in diurnal activity changes among individuals and populations remains to be studied. Recently, diurnal variation in activity has been suggested as a novel dimension of animal personality (Alós, Martorell-Barceló & Campos-Candela, 2017).…”

The turquoise killifish: a genetically tractable model for the study of aging

“…Several Nothobranchius species have been raised in the lab and their lifespan has been studied. Maximum lifespans for captivityraised Nothobranchius can reach 18 months (Genade et al, 2005;Herrera and Jagadeeswaran, 2004;Lucas-Sanchez et al, 2014;Zhou et al, 2019). The turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri), which is the shortest-lived vertebrate raised in captivity, has been proposed as an ideal model organism to bridge the gap between long-lived vertebrate and short-lived invertebrate models for aging (Kim et al, 2016;Valdesalici and Cellerino, 2003).…”

De Novo Transcriptome Profiling of Brain Tissue from the Annual Killifish Nothobranchius guentheri

“…Nothobranchius fish is a novel promising model organism for aging research which reproduces many typical aspects of vertebrate brain aging, such as gliosis and decline of neurogenic activity in adults [ 6 , 7 ]. Another interesting feature of killifish in the context of comparative aging studies is the difference in the maximum life expectancy between species that could be associated with adaptation to different rain cycles in habitats [ 8 ]. Nothobranchius furzeri is the most investigated Nothobranchius species due to its shortest life span among the vertebrates.…”

“…On the other hand, not much is known about another Nothobranchius species, such as N. guentheri , which is considered the longest living species among the genus. The maximum laboratory life span described for N. guentheri was 2 years and 3 months [ 8 ], which is still much shorter compared to other popular vertebrate fish models, such as zebrafish with an average lifespan of 3 and a half years or medaka with a lifespan of around 4 years. One of the earliest fish models for aging research, N. guentheri, is responsive to pharmacological and lifestyle interventions and demonstrates changes in the expression of some age-related markers [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ].…”