Zebrafish Nanotoxicology Assays

The rapid growth of nanotechnology in various fields like medicine, biotechnology, diagnostics, and electronics has gifted the world with products having extraordinary benefits. The development of nanotechnology allowed the use of nanomaterials (NMs) in multiple products, and consequently their release in more than 10.000 tons per year. Nanoparticles (NPs) may undergo a physical, chemical and biological transformation when they are discharged into the environment without or with certain treatments, causing a serious threat to the environment and human health. One study has shown that NPs can cause lung damage by oxidative damage and inflammatory responses. Other studies have also suggested that NPs can enter the central nervous system through the olfactory nerve, possibly resulting in degenerative diseases such as behavioral abnormalities by oxidative stress and inflammation. Thus, research in the field of nanotoxicology is of great significance.

Zebrafish is an attractive model to study environmental toxicity, attributed to their inherent advantages: small size and relatively rapid life cycle for easy breeding, as well as their feasibility for high-throughput but cost-effective screening of numerous environmental toxic pollutants. The transparent nature of embryo and larvae provide a tremendous advantage in localization study by live imaging of fluorescent-labeled NPs. Thus, zebrafish have been employed for toxicity assessments of a wide array of nanomaterials, including metal NPs, carbon-based nanomaterials, and polymers. While embryos are usually used for assessing acute and developmental toxicity of NPs, adult zebrafish have been developed for the study of NP fate, transport and bioaccumulation as well as chronic toxicity.

Our Zebrafish Nanotoxicology Assays

With years of experience and advanced technologies, Creative Biogene has established several zebrafish model systems for nanoparticle toxicity assay. Different types of parameters are used to evaluate nanoparticle toxicity such as hatching achievement rate, developmental malformation of organs, damage in gills and skin, reproduction toxicity, abnormal behavior (movement impairment), and finally mortality.

Figure 1. Toxicological studies performed in zebrafish. (Haque E, 2018)

The approaches for measuring nanotoxicology in zebrafish include:

Assessing teratogenic and other developmental effects
Immunotoxicity analysis
Genotoxicity analysis
Reproduction analysis
Neurotoxicity and behavioral analysis
Transcriptome analysis and plasmonic spectroscopy

Highlights

Accurately detect different types of NPs in the water environment
Estimate the concentration of these NPs according to the fluorescence intensity
Nanotoxicology assay at multiple stages of zebrafish development
Easy and flexible workflow
Advanced high-content screening equipment

References

Wang J, et al. Application of embryonic and adult zebrafish for nanotoxicity assessment. Nanotoxicity. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 2012: 317-329.
Pereira A C, et al. The zebrafish embryotoxicity test (ZET) for nanotoxicity assessment: from morphological to molecular approach. Environmental Pollution, 2019.
Bhagat J, et al. Zebrafish: An emerging model to study microplastic and nanoplastic toxicity. Science of The Total Environment, 2020: 138707.
Bai C, Tang M. Toxicological study of metal and metal oxide nanoparticles in zebrafish. Journal of Applied Toxicology, 2020, 40(1): 37-63.
Haque E, Ward A C. Zebrafish as a model to evaluate nanoparticle toxicity. Nanomaterials, 2018, 8(7): 561.
Brundo M V, Salvaggio A. Zebrafish or Danio rerio: A New Model in Nanotoxicology Study. Recent Advances in Zebrafish Researches, 2018: 121.

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

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