Summary
Zebrafish represents a versatile model organism with many molecular, morphological, and physiological similarities to mammals. Importantly, zebrafish are readily susceptible to perturbations by small molecules, including numerous pharmaceuticals in clinical use. Given these qualities, plus their small size and transparency, zebrafish embryos can be utilized for large-scale phenotype-based screens for small-molecule modifiers of biological processes. Thus, in a manner analogous to classical genetic screens, zebrafish chemical screens have the potential to reveal novel insights into complex biological pathways, as well as to identify lead compounds for novel therapeutics.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Professor Randall T. Peterson for his advice and encouragement. This work was supported by Sarnoff Endowment for Cardiovascular Research and K08 HL081535.
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© 2009 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Hong, C.C. (2009). Large-Scale Small-Molecule Screen Using Zebrafish Embryos. In: Clemons, P., Tolliday, N., Wagner, B. (eds) Cell-Based Assays for High-Throughput Screening. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 486. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-545-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-545-3_4
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