Zebrafish

From Free net encyclopedia

The name zebrafish applies to several different kinds of fish with striped bodies considered to resemble a zebra:

• Brachydanio rerio, also called Danio rerio or the Zebra Danio, is a commonly used model organism in studies of biological development.
• Pterois volitans, also called the Lionfish or Dragonfish.

The zebrafish is a special animal to biologists because its body is transparent, and it is easy to observe the animal's development or trace the metabolism of a particular substance, without interfering with the animal. For this reason, a tremendous amount of genetics, developmental biology and other biological research has been done on this animal. Template:Disambig

Publications

Zebrafish, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is the only peer-reviewed journal to focus on the zebrafish and other aquarium fish model species including medaka, Fugu and Xiphophorus. The physical characteristics and genetic tools and reagents that are available for use with these fish species make them ideal vertebrate models for studies of embryo development, comparative genomics, evolution, and toxicology and other areas of research. Due to its favorable qualities, the zebrafish has become one of the primary model species used for human disease-related research that is supported by the National Institutes of Health.