Zebrafish as an animal model for biomedical research

Abstract

Zebrafish have several advantages compared to other vertebrate models used in modeling human diseases, particularly for large-scale genetic mutant and therapeutic compound screenings, and other biomedical research applications. With the impactful developments of CRISPR and next-generation sequencing technology, disease modeling in zebrafish is accelerating the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of human genetic diseases. These efforts are fundamental for the future of precision medicine because they provide new diagnostic and therapeutic solutions. This review focuses on zebrafish disease models for biomedical research, mainly in developmental disorders, mental disorders, and metabolic diseases.

Crème de la Créature: Dietary Influences on Behavior in Animal Models

“…In the last decade, the zebrafish D. rerio has emerged as a new model organism to study metabolic diseases (Williams and Watts, 2019 ). Thanks to its easy maintenance, high fecundity, and powerful genetics, this organism has been used to study the effects of genes associated with human BMI and obesity, and to discover new genes involved in fat regulation and body weight (Seth et al, 2013 ; Choi et al, 2021 ). More recently, researchers have developed several diet-induced obesity paradigms and studied the effects of these dietary environments on behavior ( Figures 1 , 2 ).…”

Zebrafish and Flavonoids: Adjuvants against Obesity

“…The zebrafish ( Danio rerio ) is an attractive experimental model that can offer new opportunities in the research fields due to a combination of interesting aspects and peculiar characteristics [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 ]. The choice of zebrafish as a rather advantageous model over others is of considerable relevance because it is small robust fish, easy to maintain, and economical to breed [ 32 , 33 ].…”

A zebrafish-centric approach to antiepileptic drug development

“…forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord, as are the common neurotransmitter systems, i.e. γ–aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin and acetylcholine ( Choi et al, 2021 ). A decades long history of generating mutants by using the chemical mutagenesis agent N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) combined with advancements in transposons, transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN) and Zinc-finger nuclease (ZFN) genome editing resulted in hundreds of zebrafish lines ( Huang et al, 2012 ; Auer and Del Bene, 2014 ; Ata et al, 2016 ; Thyme et al, 2019 ).…”