Ultrastructural Mapping of the Zebrafish Gastrointestinal System as a Basis for Experimental Drug Studies. (2nd June 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cheng, Delfine; Shami, Gerald J.; Morsch, Marco; Chung, Roger S.; Braet, Filip
• Other Names: Chen Minjun Academic Editor.
• Is Part Of: BioMed research international. Volume 2016(2016)
• Publication Date: 2016-06-02
• Subjects: Medicine -- Periodicals; Biology -- Periodicals; Biotechnology -- Periodicals; Life sciences -- Periodicals; 610.5
• DOI: 10.1155/2016/8758460
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2314-6133

Abstract

Abstract : Research in the field of gastroenterology is increasingly focused on the use of alternative nonrodent model organisms to provide new experimental tools to study chronic diseases. The zebrafish is a particularly valuable experimental platform to explore organ and cell structure-function relationships under relevant biological and pathobiological settings. This is due to its optical transparency and its close-to-human genetic makeup. To-date, the structure-function properties of the GIS of the zebrafish are relatively unexplored and limited to histology and fluorescent microscopy. Occasionally those studies include EM of a given subcellular process but lack the required full histological picture. In this work, we employed a novel combined biomolecular imaging approach in order to cross-correlate 3D ultrastructure over different length scales (optical-, X-ray micro-CT, and high-resolution EM). Our correlated imaging studies and subsequent data modelling provide to our knowledge the first detailed 3D picture of the zebrafish larvae GIS. Our results provide unequivocally a limit of confidence for studying various digestive disorders and drug delivery pathways in the zebrafish.