Fish are Rising

Abstract

A report on the second European conference on zebrafish genetics and development. University College, London, 19-22 April 2001.  Several major factors that are bringing the zebrafish to the fore as a genomic resource and genetic model system were showcased at this meeting. The small, cheap, tropical, freshwater zebrafish is an important vertebrate developmental model organism that is widely used for random mutagenesis projects and is well suited to embryological manipulation because of its externally developing transparent embryos. More recently, new techniques including insertional mutagenesis, imaging and ablation of cells in live embryos, using easy-to-make transgenics carrying green fluorescent protein derivatives under a host of promoters, and the GAL4-UAS system of targeted expression have been added to the zebrafish repertoire, revealing its sheer elegance as a model organism. Some people would say that the mouse has the advantage of reverse genetics (gene knockout technology), but the advent of translation-blocking morpholino oligonucleotides in the zebrafish (and Xenopus) communities provides similar results for a fraction of the cost and time of mouse gene knockouts without positional effects.