Zebrafish embryos are nearly transparent which allows researchers to easily examine the development of internal structures. Males are slender and torpedo-shaped usually with a pink or yellow tinge. Often a patient’s DNA is sequenced in order to find a mutation in a gene that could potentially cause his or her disease symptoms. Patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy have been found to carry mutations in dystrophin and demonstrate childhood muscle weakness that gets progressively worse. Their skin is translucent, which lets us observe the growth of tumors and see whether they shrink in … As a vertebrate, the zebrafish has the same major organs and tissues as humans. To learn more about how zebrafish contribute to biomedical science and human health, visit the websites for the Trans-NIH Zebrafish Initiative website and the NICHD Zebrafish Core. Zebrafish are widely used in research due to their numerous beneficial properties. As scientific research methods evolve, the zebrafish model provides a valid, whole living organism alternative to costly mammalian in vivo methods. The use of zebrafish in neurotoxicity research is increasing and different studies underline how these animals can be employed to detect risks for human health, avoiding the ethical constraints of mouse and rat experiments. In addition to utilizing zebrafish disease models to characterize human diseases, researchers can also identify and test new drugs to treat the diseases being modeled. Native to South Asia, it is a popular aquarium fish, frequently sold under the trade name zebra danio (and thus often called a "tropical fish" although both tropical and subtropical). In addition to utilizing zebrafish disease models to characterize human diseases, researchers can also identify and test new drugs to treat the diseases being modeled. The zebrafish as a supplement to other model organisms. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3348545/. In addition, the zebrafish is increasingly used as a genetic model organism for aquaculture species and in toxicogenomics and also to generate zebrafish disease models for application in human biomedicines. If one or more of the patient’s symptoms are observed in the zebrafish knock-out or knock-in model, the zebrafish can be used for further studies to help determine why the mutation in that gene causes the disease. Let me explain. The NIH Zebrafish Core houses hundreds of thousands of zebrafish in a state-of-the-art facility. They share 70 per cent of genes with us. Zebrafish has been used for many years as a model to study development and disease. In situ hybridization technique is one of the oldest methods used in zebrafish research. Since the 1960s, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become increasingly important to scientific research. The regenerative capacity of zebrafish isn’t only interesting for medical research, but it has a very practical advantage: you can cut a tiny part of the tail fin off and use it … Zebrafish have a much larger number of offspring in each generation than rodents. * Why are zebrafish used in research? The ability of zebrafish to generate many embryos every time they breed makes them especially useful for high throughput drug screening. To keep the embryos alive after fertilizing or injecting them, they would need to be transplanted into another female mouse, as well. Since the 1960s, the zebrafish has become increasingly crucial to scientific research. 5. Zebrafish are also popular outside of developmental biology, and are particularly well-suited for neuroscience investigations. Zebrafish have already been used to help unlock a number of the biological processes behind. It can be hard to believe that zebrafish and humans have anything in common, but our developmental processes and genomes are actually very similar. Working with mice in this way is much more complicated. The number of papers based on zebrafish started to grow exponentially: four in the 50's, seventeen in the 60's, thirty seven in the 70's, 121 in the 80's, 2000 in the 1990's and now into the many tens of thousands. It has many characteristics that make it a valuable model for studying human genetics and disease. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are used pretty frequently in scientific research for several big reasons. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become a popular model organism only relatively recently. Scientists are working to find out the specific factors involved in this process to see if this will help us to develop ways of repairing the heart in humans with heart failure or who have suffered heart attacks. Because of these genetic qualities zebrafish are used across a … The generation of a knock-out of the dystrophin gene in zebrafish has been shown to closely resemble the severity and progression of the human disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a freshwater fish belonging to the minnow family (Cyprinidae) of the order Cypriniformes. “Brainbow” fish lines have been developed to enable high-resolution mapping of the brain by uniquely labeling neurons. "Zebrafish make terrific preclinical trial subjects, she says. Zebrafish embryos are also laid and fertilized externally, which allows them to be easily manipulated in a variety of ways. A model organism is a species that has been widely studied, usually because it is easy to maintain and breed in a laboratory setting and has particular experimental advantages. The zebrafish genome has been fully sequenced to a very high quality. 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