The short-lived African turquoise killifish: an emerging experimental model for ageing

Abstract

Human ageing is a fundamental biological process that leads to functional decay, increased risk for various diseases and, ultimately, death. Some of the basic biological mechanisms underlying human ageing are shared with other organisms; thus, animal models have been invaluable in providing key mechanistic and molecular insights into the common bases of biological ageing. In this Review, we briefly summarise the major applications of the most commonly used model organisms adopted in ageing research and highlight their relevance in understanding human ageing. We compare the strengths and limitations of different model organisms and discuss in detail an emerging ageing model, the short-lived African turquoise killifish. We review the recent progress made in using the turquoise killifish to study the biology of ageing and discuss potential future applications of this promising animal model.

Histomicroscopy and normal anatomy of the adult killifishAphanius hormuzensis(Teleostei; Aphaniidae) from the Persian Gulf coastal environment

“…For long times, the zebrafish D. rerio (Cypriniformes, Cyprinidae) and the Japanese medaka O. latipes (Beloniformes, Adrianichthyidae) have been successfully established as model for many biological and biomedical studies (Baumann & Sander, 1984;Bilotta, Barnett, Hancock, & Saszik, 2004;Sakamotoa, Kozakaa, Takahashib, Kawauchib, & Andoa, 2001). Beside these well-known fish models, species of killifishes have recently been proposed as additional models for various biological and biomedical aspects (Kim, Gil Nam, & Valenzano, 2015;Wendler et al, 2015;Zeinali & Motamedi, 2017).…”

The African turquoise killifish: A research organism to study vertebrate aging and diapause

“…The fast‐growing phase allows the turquoise killifish to compress its natural lifecycle within the short window of the rainy season (which lasts about 4 months), taking only ~40 days from embryos proceeding to embryos of the next generation (Kim, Nam & Valenzano, 2016; Valenzano et al., 2015). To achieve this compressed lifecycle, the turquoise killifish grows fast, reproduces fast, and, likely as a pleiotropic consequence of these constraints, also ages fast.…”

“…This practice requires extensive monitoring of the environment and constant regulation of all variables, which can be experimentally challenging when the lifespan is long (Solleveld & Hollander, 1984). With the turquoise killifish, the lifespan experiments can be completed within a shorter period of time, therefore minimizing the risk of undesired interference from the environment (Kim et al., 2016). While this practice helps focus on the genetic components of aging, it leaves the environmental inputs of aging and the interplay between genetics and environment insufficiently studied.…”

Cell cycle dynamics during diapause entry and exit in an annual killifish revealed by FUCCI technology

“…Nothobranchius furzeri. This is the shortest-lived vertebrate that can be cultured in captivity and it replicates many typical phenotypes of vertebrate and human aging [2,[16][17][18]. For this reason, it has been used as an experimental model to investigate the effects of several experimental manipulations on aging [10,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”