Zebrafish Biomedical Research
Evaluating developmental toxicity
The field of toxicology is experiencing a paradigm shift with high-throughput approaches that rapidly query huge swaths of chemico-structural space for bioactivity. Its practicality is due in large part to switching from high-cost, low-throughput mammalian models to faster and cheaper alternatives. We believe this is an improved approach because the immense breadth of the resulting data sets a foundation for predictive structure-activity-based toxicology. Moreover, rapidly uncovering structure-related bioactivity drives better decisions about where to commit resources to drill down to a mechanism, or pursue commercial leads. While hundreds of different in vitro toxicology assays can collectively serve as an alternative to mammalian animal model testing, far greater efficiency and ultimately more relevant data are obtained from whole integrated animal systems.
The developmental zebrafish, with its well-documented advantages over many animal models, has emerged as a true biosensor of chemical activity. The potential of the developing zebrafish model for toxicology and drug discovery was limited by inefficient approaches such as:
- Plating zebrafish into multi-well plates
- Chorion removal
- Chemical exposures
- Imaging
- Adult behavioral assessments
- Data analysis.
Over the years, the Tanguay lab has become the leader in the field and cleared these hurdles through instrument, protocol, and software developments to move zebrafish into the HTS environment.
Resources
- Data from the zebrafish model is publicly available through the SRP Data analytics portal.
- Extracts from passive samplers, such as SuperMix10 are tested in the zebrafish model.
- Take a Tour of (SARL), the Sinnhuber Aquatic Research Laboratory, the world’s largest zebrafish aquatic toxicology facility.
Infographics
ZBR Videos
The Tanguay Lab has pioneered and established the zebrafish as a premiere model to determine the toxicity of compounds and reveal the biological mechanism for toxicity. We have demonstrated that chemicals of concern to people cause adverse effects in zebrafish. we have invented instruments and processes that make it possible to conduct zebrafish experiments with high throughput, high efficiency, and high productivity.
This module briefly explains why early embryonic zebrafish are ideally suited to identify chemical biological activity.
For more information please see the free course, https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/953963 This module has been made possible in collaboration with Robyn Tanguay and Michael Simonich (Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Oregon State University)
Researchers who study human development rely on animal models, such as zebrafish, to gain insight into growth and movement. This time-lapse video shows the development of a fertilized zebrafish egg.