Zebrafish larvae as a model to decision-making processes – a case study
We make thousands of decisions every day. It has been estimated that we make around 220 decisions each day only related to food (1). Choice is fundamental for our lives, as well as for the behaviour of all the other animals. Making a decision requires to integrate physiological and psychological information to choose a course […]
Precise spatiotemporal genome editing in Zebrafish using CRISPR/Cas9
Since 1901, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to “those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”, in Alfred Nobel’s words1. Last year, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were awarded with this recognized prize in the field of chemistry for their contributions to the genetic engineering tool known as CRISPR/Cas92. CRISPR/Cas9 […]
Zebrafish as a model to study the toxicity of different pesticides – a case study
Since 1974, World Environment Day has been celebrated every year on 5 June, so this month we want to acknowledge this event by reviewing a scientific article where zebrafish are used to test the toxicity of certain pesticides: Toxicity of Deltamethrin to Zebrafish Gonads Revealed by Cellular Biomarkers 1, published in Journal of Marine Science […]
Zebrafish to study a broken heart: macrophages’ implication in scar formation after a heart attack
In this series of articles, we review some of the key scientific publications of 2020 which included zebrafish in their studies. This review will cover an article published in Nature Communications on January 30th, 2020: Macrophages directly contribute collagen to scar formation during zebrafish heart regeneration and mouse heart repair1. This article challenges the current […]
Man-made chemicals PFAS surround us, and you did not even know about their toxic effect: what zebrafish can tell us
In this series of articles, we review some of the key scientific publications of 2020 which included zebrafish in their studies. This second review will cover an article published in Environmental Health Perspective on April 9th 2020: Evaluation of Developmental Toxicity, Developmental Neurotoxicity, and Tissue Dose in Zebrafish Exposed to GenX and Other PFAS1. In […]
Studying breast cancer with zebrafish: a case study
In this new series of articles, we will review some of the key scientific publications of 2020 which included zebrafish in their studies. This first review will cover an article published in Clinical Cancer Research on March 15th 2020: Deubiquitinase Activity Profiling Identifies UCHL1 as a Candidate Oncoprotein that Promotes TGFβ-induced breast cancer metastasis1. In […]
Small model organisms
Over the past years, zebrafish have proven to be excellent model systems for a wide panel of experiments. We have discussed throughout our previous articles their advantages and disadvantages, how they could be incorporated to various research fields and different automation techniques which facilitate their handling in laboratories. Today we will discuss 4 other model […]
Studying zebrafish behaviour: robotics and automation
In today’s article we will take a step back from zebrafish embryos and discuss how adult zebrafish collective behaviours can be studied using robotic systems. Danio rerio, commonly known as zebrafish is a small but robust cyprinid, commonly found in food plains of the south of Asia, particularly India. They thrive in shallow and slow flowing-waters […]
Morphological and phenotypic characteristics of zebrafish embryos
In our modern world, development of new synthetic compounds and chemicals is essential for many industries, such as the pharmaceutical, clothing and food industries. This has become a major public and environmental issue as many of these compounds can be toxic and detrimental to human and animal health. In addition to these artificial toxins, chemicals […]
Zebrafish early embryo sorting
Over the past 20 years, the use of zebrafish in the lab has dramatically increased. In 2000, PubMed displayed 657 articles when searching for “zebrafish”. In 2020, that number shot up to 3’979 publications (1). This is most likely due to the many advantages zebrafish represent as an animal model (and which are resumed in […]