Integrating Zebrafish Research into Pharmaceutical Studies

Abstract

Zebrafish are the source of several medicinal therapies that have lately made their way into clinical trials or the clinic. Because of their highly conserved molecular pathways, clinically relevant etiology, and disease features, zebrafish have become a potent preclinical model for human illness. They are also widely known for their contributions to developmental biology. When combined with cell-specific or tissue-specific reporters and gene editing technologies, zebrafish respond to small molecules and drug treatments at physiologically relevant dose ranges. This allows for the study of drug activity at single-cell resolution within the complex body of an animal, across tissues, and over an extended period. These characteristics allow for the discovery of new drug classes as well as the repurposing of existing medications for individualized and compassionate usage. They also enable high-throughput and high-content phenotypic drug screening. Drugs and drug leads that are investigated in zebrafish frequently have an inter-organ mechanism of action and would not be found by methods of focused screening. Here, we go over the significance of zebrafish as a model for drug discovery, the methods by which these findings are made, and upcoming changes to fully utilize zebrafish's potential for medical research.