The usefulness of zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model for aquaculture research

Abstract

In the last fifteen years, zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become a popular fish model in many finfish aquaculture research fields. Recently, this popularity has been fueled by the fact that in many cultured species genomic resources are becoming available, a situation that allows fruitful comparative structural and functional genomics across species. Here, we assess the characteristics that zebrafish offers as a suitable model for finfish aquaculture research describing not only the advantages but also its limitations. We describe the biological features (phylogenetic relationships, development, growth, reproduction, etc.) in wild and domesticated zebrafish strains. We first comment the work already carried out in zebrafish that is related to different aspects of aquaculture research such as stress, pathology, toxicology nutrition and growth and later explore the different resources implemented so far to facilitate research with zebrafish and also highlight the remaining shortcomings. We illustrate the usefulness of using zebrafish as a model for reproduction-related research by presenting data performed in our laboratory, describing, among others, the environmental effects on sex differentiation process in zebrafish. Finally, we conclude that the implementation of zebrafish as a model organism in aquaculture research will continue in the following years and zebrafish will likely play an important tool for many finfish aquaculture research areas