PUBLICATION

Zebrafish as a developmental model organism for pediatric research

Authors
Veldman, M.B., and Lin, S.
ID
ZDB-PUB-080825-19
Date
2008
Source
Pediatric Research   64(5): 470-476 (Review)
Registered Authors
Lin, Shuo, Veldman, Matt
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Animals, Genetically Modified
  • Biomedical Research*
  • Cell Transplantation
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian/drug effects
  • Gene Expression Profiling/methods
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental*
  • Gene Knock-In Techniques
  • Gene Knockout Techniques
  • Genetic Testing
  • Genotype
  • Humans
  • In Situ Hybridization
  • Models, Animal
  • Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis
  • Pediatrics*
  • Phenotype
  • Zebrafish/embryology
  • Zebrafish/genetics*
  • Zebrafish/growth & development
PubMed
18679162 Full text @ Pediatr. Res.
Abstract
Zebrafish has many advantages as a model of human pediatric research. Given the physical and ethical problems with performing experiments on human patients, biomedical research has focused on using model organisms to study biological processes conserved between humans and lower vertebrates. The most common model organisms are small mammals, usually rats and mice. Although these models have significant advantages, they are also expensive to maintain, difficult to manipulate embryonically, and limited for large-scale genetic studies. The zebrafish model nicely complements these deficiencies in mammalian experimental models. The low cost, small size, and external development of zebrafish make it an excellent model for vertebrate development biology. Techniques for large-scale genome mutagenesis and gene mapping, transgenesis, protein overexpression or knockdown, cell transplantation and chimeric embryo analysis, and chemical screens have immeasurably increased the power of this model organism. It is now possible to rapidly determine the developmental function of a gene of interest in vivo, and then identify genetic and chemical modifiers of the processes involved. Discoveries made in zebrafish can be further validated in mammals. With novel technologies being regularly developed, the zebrafish is poised to significantly improve our understanding of vertebrate development under normal and pathological conditions.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping