Premium
Morphometric parameters to evaluate zebrafish heart: a model to study cardiovascular function.
Author(s) -
Vargas Rafael A,
Vásquez Isabel Cristina
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.556.1
Subject(s) - zebrafish , biology , animal model , fish <actinopterygii> , somatic cell , cardiovascular health , bioinformatics , medicine , physiology , pathology , disease , endocrinology , genetics , fishery , gene
Cardiovascular diseases are a worldwide public health problem. To date, extensive research has been conducted to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms that trigger cardiovascular diseases and to evaluate therapeutic options. Animal models are widely used to achieve these goals, and zebrafish have emerged as a low‐cost model that produces rapid results. Currently, a large body of research is devoted to the cardiovascular development and diverse cardiovascular disorders of zebrafish embryos and larvae. However, less research has been conducted on adult zebrafish specimens and, there is insufficient information about cardiosomatic parameters in healthy adult zebrafish. Although various somatic and cardiac morphometric parameters are widely used to assess the developmental conditions of commercial and wild fish species, to evaluate growth, maturation, nutrition, reproduction and overall health status for individuals and populations, we found that surprisingly, these parameters have not previously been fully examined in adult zebrafish. In this study, we describe a method to obtain and to evaluate morphometric parameters (of both the entire animal and the heart) of adult zebrafish. We used these data to calculate additional parameters, such as body mass index, condition factor and cardiac somatic index. This method and its results can be used as reference for researchers who are interested in future studies that aim to evaluate the pathophysiological aspects of the zebrafish cardiovascular system. Support or Funding Information This work was supported by Research Grant from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia. Project: 5605, budget code 120112Z0401200.