Modeling Parkinson’s Disease in Zebrafish

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title>Background and Objective:</jats:title> <jats:p> Parkinson disease (PD) is one of the commonest neurodegenerative disorders that affects the motor system, and includes cardinal motor symptoms such as resting tremor, cogwheel rigidity, bradykinesia and postural instability. Its prevalence is increasing worldwide due to increase in life span. Although, two centuries since the first description of the disease, no proper cure with regard to treatment strategies and control of symptoms could be reached. One of the major challenges faced by the researchers is to have a suitable research model.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results:</jats:title> <jats:p>Rodents are the most common PD models used but no single model can replicate the true nature of PD. In this review, we aim to discuss another animal model, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) which is gaining popularity. Zebrafish brain has all the major structures found in the mammalian brain, complete with neurotransmitters systems, and possesses a functional blood-brain barrier similar to humans. From the perspective of PD research, the zebrafish possesses the ventral diencephalon which is thought to be homologous to the mammalian substantia nigra. We summarize the various zebrafish models available to study PD, namely chemical-induced and genetic models.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion:</jats:title> <jats:p> The zebrafish can complement to the use of other animal models for the mechanistic study of PD and help in the screening of new potential therapeutic compounds.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Schaftoside Suppresses Pentylenetetrazol-Induced Seizures in Zebrafish via Suppressing Apoptosis, Modulating Inflammation, and Oxidative Stress

“…Nevertheless, rodents and zebrafish are model organisms used extensively in epilepsy research. It is worth mentioning that zebrafish have recently gained increased attention as a model organism for several neurological disorders, including epilepsy, , post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE), traumatic brain injury (TBI), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) . Zebrafish offers several advantages over rodents, including large-scale drug screenings, fast embryonic development, small size, and easy maintenance .…”

Zebrafish Is a Powerful Tool for Precision Medicine Approaches to Neurological Disorders

“…As vertebrates, zebrafish, and human genomes show a high homology, about 80% of genes associated with diseases in patients are conserved in zebrafish ( Kalueff et al, 2014 ). Notably, many CNS-related disorders have been successfully modeled in the past and some recent reviews have compiled an exhaustive list of zebrafish models of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) ( Braems et al, 2021 ), Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP) ( Naef et al, 2019 ; Quelle-Regaldie et al, 2021a , b ), Epilepsy ( Rosch et al, 2019 ; Gawel et al, 2020 ), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) ( Meshalkina et al, 2018 ; de Abreu et al, 2020 ), Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) ( Saleem and Kannan, 2018 ), Parkinson’s Disease (PD) ( Unal and Emekli-Alturfan, 2019 ; Najib et al, 2020 ), Huntington’s and Prion-related diseases ( Wang et al, 2021 ), Serotonin syndrome (SS) ( Stewart et al, 2013 ), and Glioblastoma ( Reimunde et al, 2021 ). In this context, our group pioneered the generation of several models of CNS genetic disorders, caused by mutations in gabra1 ( Samarut et al, 2018 ), gabrg2 ( Liao et al, 2019 ), depdc5 ( Swaminathan et al, 2018 ), glra1 ( Samarut et al, 2019 ), or gldc ( Riche et al, 2018 ), and these mutants display clinically-relevant phenotypes such as seizures, ataxic motor phenotypes or hypotonia.…”

Fish Behavior as a Neural Proxy to Reveal Physiological States

“…Zebrafish and medaka have been used as models to investigate the etiology and pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Typically, there are two types of PD models: neurotoxin-induced and gene-based models to reduce dopaminergic neurons and dopamine release to mimic corresponding PD symptoms ( Lam et al, 2005 ; McKinley et al, 2005 ; Matsui et al, 2012 ; Vaz et al, 2018 ; Najib et al, 2020 ; Razali et al, 2021 ). PD model fish also showed locomotion deficits, including a reduction in the swimming speed, an increase in the no-moving time, and impairment of touch sensations, which are similar to symptoms of PD patients ( Lam et al, 2005 ; Milanese et al, 2012 ; Hughes et al, 2020 ; Robea et al, 2020 ; Wasel and Freeman, 2020 ).…”