Why do some fishes create electrical signals?

What can we learn from zebrafish disease models?

For a patient with a neurological disease, the neurons of knock-out embryos can be fluorescently labeled to see if they form incorrectly. 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.

Which fish can generate an electric field?

The fishes that can generate electric fields are called electrogenic fishes. To answer this question, we must know about the electrogenic fishes. There are two types of fishes depending on the response to electric fields.

How has zebrafish chemical biology changed in the past 15 years?

In the past 15 years, zebrafish chemical biology has moved forward rapidly. Many of the initial practical complexities of drug screens, including methodology and access to libraries, have been addressed through community efforts such as the Zebrafish Disease Models Society (see Related links).

What can we learn from the embryonic zebrafish?

The last several years have witnessed an explosion in our understanding of vertebrate development, largely based on work from a few model genetic organisms. The embryonic zebrafish is one of these new models, and many research grants are funded by NIH and NIEHS to utilize this model.

Can zebrafish be used as a model of human disease?

The many research advantages and flexibility of manipulation of zebrafish have made them an increasingly attractive animal to model and study human disease. To facilitate disease-related research, ZFIN developed support to provide human disease information as well as annotation of zebrafish models of human disease.

What is the function of the fish ear?

Thus, the fish ear is primarily sensitive to the particle motion of the sound field. It is possible to create a sound field in the laboratory which only consists of sound pressure, with very little particle motion. In such as sound field, a mammalian ear is still registering the sound very well, whereas many fish cannot detect any signal at all.

Why do fish make sounds?

Sounds produced by fishes for communication are generally associated with either reproduction or stressful situations. Reproductive activity, including courtship and spawning, accounts for the majority of sounds known to be produced by fishes.

What is the difference between electric and electroreceptive fish?

An electric fish would be any fish that is capable of generating electric fields. A fish which can emit electric fields is named electrogenic, whereas electroreceptive is the name of a fish which has the ability to sense electric fields. Many fish that are electrogenic are also electroreceptive.

How are electric fields produced in an organism?

These external electric fields can be produced by any bioelectrical process in an organism, especially by actions of the nerves or muscles of fish, or indeed by the specially developed electric organs of fish. Other fields are induced by movement of a conducting organism through the earth’s magnetic field, or from atmospheric electricity.

Can zebrafish be used as an animal model for Disease Modeling?

Beyond the zebrafish: diverse fish species for modeling human disease In recent years, zebrafish, and to a lesser extent medaka, have become widely used small animal models for human diseases.

Is zebrafish a good model for the study of hepatocellular carcinoma?

Zebrafish has proven to be a good model for the study of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HCC is the prevailing type of liver cancer worldwide. It has been shown in zebrafish that the liver-specific expression of the human ribose-5-phosphate isomerase A (RPIA) under the expression of fabp10apromoter can mediate hepatocarcinogenesis.

Is a zebrafish a human?

Like the mouse, the zebrafish is suitable for genetic analysis, and is a valuable animal for creating genetic models of human diseases. Although the zebrafish genome is only half the length of the human genome, the genetic structure is remarkably similar.

Why is a zebrafish a good animal model?

The zebrafish has many features that make it an excellent animal model for studying development in vertebrates. The embryos develop externally to the mother and are transparent, so they can be easily viewed and manipulated. Compared to frogs the organisation of the zebrafish embryo is simple, and they develop more quickly.

Is it possible to observe live embryos in zebrafish?

Mouse embryos are not clear and develop inside the mother, so the observation of live embryo development like that in zebrafish is not possible. However, there is a limit on what types of diseases can be studied in zebrafish.

Why are zebrafish useful for drug screening?

The ability of zebrafish to generate many embryos every time they breed makes them especially useful for high throughput drug screening. What are some examples of human diseases that have been successfully modeled in zebrafish?

Are zebrafish vertebrates or invertebrates?

In contrast to fruit flies and worms, the other simple model organisms established at the time, zebrafish are vertebrates. They have a backbone, brain and spinal cord as well as several other organs, including a heart, liver and pancreas, kidneys, bones and cartilage, which makes them much more similar to humans than you may have otherwise thought.

What are zebrafish used for in science?

By 3 months, zebrafish are breeding adults and generate large numbers of embryos for small-molecule and genetic screens, and are themselves studied as models for disease, including cancer, cardiovascular and other organ defects, behaviour, addiction, metabolism, and adult tissue regeneration and physiology.

What can zebrafish screening tell us about the future of Medicine?

Zebrafish screening might also provide the ability to discover therapeutic modulators of “undruggable” processes, as it explores biology to a complexity unseen in cell-based or biochemical screens. Overall, zebrafish screening is a convenient and ideal technology for novel therapeutic discovery.

Why do we use zebrafish as a model organism for toxicity studies?

Zebrafish have served as an excellent model system to assess in vivo toxicity in response to treatment of a chemical of interest, and numerous studies have illustrated metabolic changes related to mitochondrial function upon chemical treatment55–57.

What phenotypes are observed in zebrafish chemical screening?

Multiple phenotypes can be observed in zebrafish chemical screening. One can observe behavioral changes such as sleep/wake patterns or a movement response to light. In addition, one can also observe changes in gene expression either overall or in specific tissues due to chemical action.

What is the translucency of the zebrafish embryo?

As mentioned, one of the advantages of the zebrafish embryo is its translucency, which enables the investigator to examine its development readily with the dissecting microscope. Figure 1A gives an overview of development during the first 24 hours (Haffter et al., 1996), and development from 1 to 5 days is shown in Figure 1B.