Zebrafish EcoToxicity Assays

The rapid growth of populations and technological advancement have led to innumerable pollutants and environmental toxin exposure. Environmental pollution, especially water pollution, is a serious issue all over the world. Water pollution not only affects the reproduction and survival of aquatic organisms but also adversely impacts human health by bioconcentration. Thus, this has generated a crucial need for toxin surveillance, identification of consequences of exposure, and understanding of the biological, chemical, and genetic mechanisms that underlie those effects.

Zebrafish are well-accepted vertebrate models for investigating the toxicity of chemicals in aquatic environments. Zebrafish possess discrete tissue and organs that are similar to human counterparts at the anatomical, physiological, and molecular levels. They are preferred for acute and chronic toxicity tests in the laboratory due to many favorable characteristics, such as small body size, easy husbandry, rapid development and short test cycle. Zebrafish could be used for studies on eco-environmental monitoring and multitudinous pollutant evaluations, such as endocrine disruptors, toxic heavy metals, and organic pollutants.

Creative Biogene, a zebrafish research company with experienced scientists and advanced technology, can offer a series of toxicology assays to test the presence of contaminants in a high-throughput manner. Our zebrafish ecotoxicity assays offer real-time in vivo studies to address potential hazards to human health that result from naturally occurring compounds and commercial use of new synthetics or byproducts of their production, and can enhance our understanding of the specific effects of environmental exposures.

Wild-type Zebrafish EcoToxicity Assays

Sensitivity to different contaminants makes the zebrafish an ideal model organism for environmental monitoring. The characteristic changes in morphology, behavior, gene expression, and physiology were observed as biological indicators. The pollutants detected in in vivo studies with wild-type zebrafish can be classified mainly as endocrine disruptors, toxic heavy metals, and organic pollutants.

Transgenic Zebrafish EcoToxicity Assays

The transgenic zebrafish is a more advanced system for monitoring environmental pollutants. Creative Biogene has developed a variety of response elements to detect different specific environmental pollutants. After microinjected recombinant constructed plasmids, the zebrafish line stably inherited fluorescent protein gene could be obtained by screening. We can use the transgenic reporter zebrafish lines to measure exposure to organic chemicals, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, and electrophilic agents. Transgenic lines have been used not only to detect the presence of toxins, but can improve investigations into the molecular mechanisms underlying pathology associated with environmental exposures.

Figure 1. The manipulation of transgenic zebrafish for environmental monitoring. (Dai Y J, et al. 2014)

Highlights

Transcriptional profiling to identify contaminants
High-throughput screening for toxicity studies
Automated assessment of behavior and morphologic phenotypes
High predictivity on hazard assessment relevant to effects on humans
Pathways and mechanisms of toxicant-induced disease studies
Strong impact in 3Rs implementation

For more information or consultation, please feel free to contact us.

References

Dai Y J, et al. Zebrafish as a model system to study toxicology. Environmental toxicology and chemistry, 2014, 33(1): 11-17.
Bambino K, Chu J. Zebrafish in toxicology and environmental health. Current topics in developmental biology. Academic Press, 2017, 124: 331-367.
Muazzam B, et al. Stress response and toxicity studies on zebrafish exposed to endosulfan and imidacloprid present in water. Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology—AQUA, 2019, 68(8): 718-730.
Scholz S, et al. The zebrafish embryo model in environmental risk assessment—applications beyond acute toxicity testing. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2008, 15(5): 394-404.

For research use only. Not intended for any clinical use.

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