The zebrafish: a model species
When we talk about models, we immediately think of beautiful women, very thin and with extravagant dresses that walk on multicolored walkways. However, for biology model organisms have a very different meaning, since they are used to investigate and understand life itself. In recent years, Danio Rerio, commonly known as zebra danio or zebrafish, widely known in English as zebrafish, has emerged as a very important biological model in the biology of development and genetics, in different aspects of the biology of vertebrates, and even as an experimental model in human diseases and biomedical studies. The characteristics that make this fish so attractive and popular for scientists are its small size, the ease of its breeding and maintenance, its rapid development, the brief time that passes from one generation to another, its optical transparency in the early stages of Its development and its genetic similarity with human beings.
What is a model organism? That’s say the laboratory zebrafish services Ikanbiotech.
A model organism refers to those species that have been intensively studied and that are used to investigate multiple aspects of biology; That is to say, an organism is a model if it is being used as an analog or that is illustrative for something that is not under the direct study, like the whole group of animals or an ancestor, irreparably extinguished. Any animal selected for a study is a model if it is taken as representative of some characteristics of a larger group (gender, family, order or phylum) or an inaccessible taxon. A characteristic of a model organism is general for the phylogenetic group if it is shared by the other members of the group, whose similarity is due to the fact that they share a common ancestor, a convergent evolution or even a similar function. Among the most studied model species are certain enteric bacteria, beer yeast, mold, some nematodes and gastropods, fruit fly, certain frogs and ajolotes, chicken, mouse, and recently the herbaceous plant known as arabidopsis and caterpillar and zebrafish. The use of these few model organisms has allowed to have important resources for the development of a series of tools, such as the sequence of virtually all its genome and molecular tests, development tables, standard protocols of molecular biology and histology, handling methods genetics and embryos and specialized lines of various types, including strains of hybrids and genetic lines, all of which have made the great advance of biology possible. These organisms are for the investigator the equivalent of a biological reagent, so its purity must be controlled and avoid biotic contamination, so it is required that its production be standardized, which have defined genetic and sanitary characteristics, that are raised or cultivated in controlled environments that respect the requirements of the species and that the ethical principles for their well-being are fulfilled.
Biological aspects of zebrafish
As we can see in Figure 1, the zebrafish is native to Southeast Asia and its range of natural distribution includes the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins and the tropical sweet waters of the monsoon regions of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan, Thailand, and northern Myanmar.
Table 1 summarizes the physicochemical characteristics of their habitat, characterized by small, quiet bodies of water with abundant vegetation; It can even be found in paddy fields and other lands that are temporarily flooded.
