Zebrafish: an Efficient Vertebrate Model for Understanding Role of Gut Microbiota

Overview

Journal Mol Med

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialties General Medicine
Molecular Biology

Date 2022 Dec 23

PMID 36564702

Authors

Hui Xia

Huimin Chen

Xue Cheng

Mingzhu Yin

Xiaowei Yao

Jun Ma

Mengzhen Huang

Gang Chen

Hongtao Liu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Gut microbiota plays a critical role in the maintenance of host health. As a low-cost and genetically tractable vertebrate model, zebrafish have been widely used for biological research. Zebrafish and humans share some similarities in intestinal physiology and function, and this allows zebrafish to be a surrogate model for investigating the crosstalk between the gut microbiota and host. Especially, zebrafish have features such as high fecundity, external fertilization, and early optical transparency. These enable the researchers to employ the fish to address questions not easily addressed in other animal models. In this review, we described the intestine structure of zebrafish. Also, we summarized the methods of generating a gnotobiotic zebrafish model, the factors affecting its intestinal flora, and the study progress of gut microbiota functions in zebrafish. Finally, we discussed the limitations and challenges of the zebrafish model for gut microbiota studies. In summary, this review established that zebrafish is an attractive research tool to understand mechanistic insights into host-microbe interaction.

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