The Vital Relationship Between Nutrition and Health in Zebrafish

Abstract

In the relatively short span of four decades, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) has emerged as an increasingly important model organism for biomedicine and other scientific disciplines. As the scale and sophistication of zebrafish research expands, so too does the need to develop standards that promote the production and maintenance of healthy animals for experiments. A major, but long overlooked, contributor to fish health is nutrition. Historically, feeding practices for laboratory zebrafish have been designed to promote growth and reproductive function. However, as the field matures, it is becoming increasingly clear that the nutritional goals for these animals should evolve beyond basic production to the maintenance of clinically healthy research subjects. This review outlines weaknesses and limitations of current approaches and provides a justification for the development of defined standardized diets that will strengthen and facilitate the continued growth of the zebrafish model system.

Metagenomics approach to the study of the gut microbiome structure and function in zebrafish Danio rerio fed with gluten formulated diet

“…Recently, the zebrafish Danio rerio has been established as a model organism to study for various genetic and environmental aspects of health, disease, and embryological development (Barut and Zon, 2000; Elli, and Roncoroni et al,. 2015; Sadler et al, 2013; Siccardi III et al, 2009; Watts et al, 2016). Many anatomical and physiological characteristics of the D. rerio digestive system, including disease states, are shared with the mammalian digestive system (Sadler, and Rawls et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2010).…”

“…Many anatomical and physiological characteristics of the D. rerio digestive system, including disease states, are shared with the mammalian digestive system (Sadler, and Rawls et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2010). Also, the usefulness of this organism is emphasized by the ability to formulate feeds to promote growth, health, or disease in the laboratory setting (Siccardi III et al, 2009; Watts et al, 2016; Watts et al, 2012). Because of this, it is possible to formulate a gluten diet to elucidate the effect of the microbial composition in the gut ecosystem of laboratory raised D. rerio .…”

Integrative Physiology: At the Crossroads of Nutrition, Microbiota, Animal Physiology, and Human Health

“…For example, over-nutrition using glucose or chicken egg yolk feeding was found to stimulate pancreatic beta-cell expansion through mTOR and insulin/IGF-1 pathways respectively (Maddison and Chen, 2012) . To define roles of nutrition on microbiota and host physiology, it will be important to continue improving our understanding of zebrafish nutritional requirements, to establish standardized open-formulation diets, and to improve reporting standards in the scientific literature for diet composition and post-embryonic staging (Watts et al, 2016). …”

Universal Healthcare for Zebrafish

“…This collection of 23 articles submitted by contributors from around the world addresses a wide range of issues ranging from management of many types and sizes of zebrafish research facilities, [5][6][7][8][9][10] strategies for monitoring colony health, [11][12][13][14] case reports of pathogen outbreaks in zebrafish colonies, 15,16 results of studies of endemic and exotic pathogens, [17][18][19] testing of disinfection protocols, 20 establishing regulations for health surveillance for zebrafish importation, 21 to standardization of reporting on health status, 8,[22][23][24] nomenclature, 25 and nutrition. 26 We view this as the beginning of a community-wide dialogue that will promote zebrafish health and thus enhance research productivity and validity of results. Going forward, we welcome additional submissions to Zebrafish that address these and other issues related to fish husbandry and health, which will add to this important and growing body of literature.…”

“…5 In their review on the relationship between fish health and nutrition, Watts et al discuss the challenges associated with both the utilization of live feeds in the diet of research fish and using processed diets without sufficient knowledge of fish nutrient requirements. 26 Not only do the articles in this special issue bring together a wealth of information on zebrafish husbandry and management strategies, they also bring together the most comprehensive collection of information on zebrafish health monitoring. Why monitor fish health?…”