Zebrafish Model in Biotechnology

Dr. Madhusudhana Rao’s laboratory from CCMB, Hyderabad, generated a transgenic line by applying electrical pulses subsequent to injection of DNA into the muscle tissue of adult zebrafish. Prof. T.J. Pandian’s group at Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU), Madurai evaluated the expression of growth hormone in zebrafish by Southern analysis after transferring the hormone encoding cDNA to the zebrafish through electroporation and microinjection techniques confirmed by References.

The DRILS, Hyderabad has started research to merge academic research and the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with public–private partnership. A group led by Dr. Kiranam Chatti is actively involved in understanding tyrosine kinase biology in zebra-fish for screening drugs. The optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging is a valuable tool for the noninvasive assessment of various defects in small animal systems. A group from Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore led by Divakar Rao reported the use of OCT for noninvasive cross-sectional real-time imaging on zebrafish brain and eye. They determined that the anatomic feature of the brain includes the cerebellum, telencephalon, tectum opticum, and eminentia granularis byOCT images in the zebrafish.

Prof. Soumen Basak in the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata introduced rhodamine–rhodanine-based fluorescent mercury sensor which can detect mercury from live cells in the vertebrates. His team demonstrated how to acquire high-resolution real-time distribution maps of inorganic mercury in the zebra-fish brain by fluorescence confocal imaging technique.

Dr. Palaniappan, a physicist from Annamalai University, Chidambaram tried to understand the effect of titanium dioxide on the biochemical constituents, including proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids in zebrafish. Dr.EkambaramPerumal, Molecular Toxicology Lab at Bharathiar University(BU), Coimbatore, also checked the effect of titanium dioxide on zebrafish gill tissues. They observed the increase of protein content, protein carbonyls, reactive oxygen species, and lipid peroxidation product levels in zebrafish.

From IISC, Ban-galore, Dr. Upendra’s Developmental and Biomedical Ge-netics Lab suggested the role of physiologically fit muscles which can boost the innate immune responses in the fish. The in silico approach is assumed to reveal the structure and homology of biomolecules in the living system. A group from the University of Burdwan, West Bengal determined the structure of zebrafish’s insulin proteins through computational approach. They used both Swiss Model web server and ESy-Pred3D web server for these studies, and structural quality was checked by ProQ web software.

Sanjeev Sabnis, a mathematician from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, evaluated the role of Ayurvedic bhasmas on the survival and hatching of zebrafish embryos. He illustrated the promotional and inhibitory effects of bhasmas by statistical analysis using generalized estimating equation methodology.

A group led by Prof. Yogesh Bhargava, Molecular Engineering and ImagingLab at Dr. Harisingh Gour Central University (DHSGCU), Sagar proposed a novel method called ‘‘ZebraTrack,’’ which is a software used for behavioral analysis of the fish. Their group designed a self-cleaning recirculating tank for maintenance of zebrafish in laboratory conditions.

Dr. Pratima Chaud-huri’s Molecular Biophysics Lab at Amity University monitored the structural and functional changes of small monomeric protein, zDHFR, by chemicals in the in vivo model.

Biotechnology is again a vast zone, where the research potential is untapped.