Zebrafish as an Experimental Model for the Study of Obesity

Abstract

Obesity is considered a silent global pandemic, with a steady increase in adults and children. It is a complex disease that involves the interaction of genetic and environmental factors and predisposes individuals to severe chronic complications such as various types of cancer, dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia, hypercholesterolemia, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. To help elucidate the physiological mechanisms of this comorbidity in order to identify and develop effective treatments, the use of animal models is indispensable. Zebrafish is emerging as an important model for studying obesity and related metabolic diseases. In addition to being a small animal, with high genetic similarity when compared to humans and easy to handle, zebrafish also has the main well-conserved metabolism-related functions such as appetite regulation, insulin regulation, and lipid storage. Zebrafish is also suitable for the identification of new targets associated with the risk and treatment of obesity in humans. In this review, we highlight the studies that use zebrafish to study metabolic diseases demonstrating their important contribution in this area of research.