2013/06/11 by Herman P. Spaink, Chao Cui, Małgorzata Wiweger +11 · 4 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Zebrafish Biomedical Research Applications #Pluripotent Stem Cells Research #CRISPR and Genetic Engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.ymeth.2013.06.002
openalex publication_date 2013/06/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
The increasing use of zebrafish larvae for biomedical research applications is resulting in versatile models for a variety of human diseases. These models exploit the optical transparency of zebrafish larvae and the availability of a large genetic tool box. Here we present detailed protocols for the robotic injection of zebrafish embryos at very high accuracy with a speed of up to 2000 embryos per hour. These protocols are benchmarked for several applications: (1) the injection of DNA for obtaining transgenic animals, (2) the injection of antisense morpholinos that can be used for gene knock-down, (3) the injection of microbes for studying infectious disease, and (4) the injection of human cancer cells as a model for tumor progression. We show examples of how the injected embryos can be screened at high-throughput level using fluorescence analysis. Our methods open up new avenues for the use of zebrafish larvae for large compound screens in the search for new medicines.