Zebrafish (Danio rerio): A potential model for nephroprotective drug screening

Abstract

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has emerged as a potential vertebrate model for high throughput screening in drug discovery and development process. Easy breeding, short maturation time, transparent embryos for easy observation, good regeneration capability, well characterization of developmental stages, low maintenance cost, high productivity, less ethical constrains, etc. are a few unique characteristics which make zebrafish an attractive model for biomedical research. Apart from these, zebrafish possesses many anatomical, physiological and genetical similarities with higher mammals. Many pathological disorders have been successfully studied in zebrafish like cancer, cardiovascular, renal diseases, immunological, hematological disorders, etc. The pronephros of zebrafish imitates mammalian kidney at structural, functional and cellular level and thus allows informative nephrological research. The present review highlights the use of zebrafish as a model to screen nephroprotective molecules, to enable better understanding of nephrotoxicity and thus to target new therapies.