What it looks like when you defecate zebrafish larvae ⬇️

(No April Fools here! Adult jellies in this study were fed brainbow larvae 😝) #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Did you know? Adult zebrafish genital papillae/cloacas pulse rapidly. Video credit: Dr. Shannon Romano. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Image of a young Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard looking at stocks of fruit flies. Image credit to MPG/W. Filser. Credit text to Headwaters of the zebrafish — emergence of a new model vertebrate by Grunwald and Eisen (2002)

Foundational work in #zebrafish can be credited to "fruitful" discussions between #Drosophila researchers such as José Campos-Ortega & Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. By the late 1980s, multidisciplinary approaches honed in flies were finally applied to a vertebrate. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Zebrafish Husbandry Basics - Zebrafish Husbandry Association

You can find the #zebrafish husbandry basics in multiple languages at the ZHA website: www.zhaonline.org/resources/ze...

Would you like to add your own written language to the growing list? Please reach out to @zebrafishhusbandry.bsky.social 🐟 2/2 🧪

#ZebrafishFunFacts

The zebrafish issue: 25 years on Summary: In this Spotlight, five zebrafish researchers reflect on how the 1996 zebrafish issue of Development has influenced their career and their community.

🔗 to CNV Lab paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9007226/

🔗 to Driever Lab paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9007227/

🔗 to 25th anniversary paper (2021) on special Zebrafish issue of @dev-journal.bsky.social: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

#ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

The Boston Big screen team – Wolfgang Driever's laboratory From the left: Jarema Malicki, Fried Zwartkruis, Jane Belak, Stephan Neuhauss, Derek Stemple, Alex Schier, Wolfgang Driever (sitting), Jeanine Downing, Eliza Mountcastle-Shah, Lila Solnica-Krezel and Michelle Harvey. Not in the picture: Salim Abdulilah Seyfried, Colin Boggs and Zehava Rangini, as well as Michael Pack and Didier Stainier from Mark Fishman's lab, who screened for intestinal and cardiovascular phenotypes, respectively.

Work in Tübingen 🇩🇪 was only half of this infamous project. Work led by the Driever Lab in Boston 🇺🇸 was summed up in, ‘A genetic screen for mutations affecting embryogenesis in zebrafish’ in the same #zebrafish issue in Development (1996). Cited 1700+ times, it’s one to remember! #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Cover of the December 1996 issue of Development that describes the results of The Big Screen.

Published 30 years ago, 'The identification of genes with unique and essential functions in the development of the zebrafish, Danio rerio' by the Nüsslein-Volhard Lab highlighted the arduous work that took place during 'The Big Screen'. In total, 1163 mutants were described. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Fun story: Scientists once fed Drosophila with amyloid-beta aggregates to adult zebrafish to test for intra-species transmission. 🪰🐟 #ZebrafishFunFacts

Source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

We’ll be highlighting papers from the infamous Zebrafish Special Issue of @dev-journal.bsky.social (1996) to celebrate its 30th anniversary 🎉 #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

For those looking to learn more, check out the 2021 community reflection from 25 years on: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Morphology of the embryonic zebrafish brain at 28 hours after fertilization. The following structures can be identified in living zebrafish embryos under dissecting stereomicroscopes: tel, telencephalon; di, diencephalon with the ventrally located hypothalamus and the epiphysis (ep); tgm, tegmentum; tct, tectum and tectal ventricle; mhb, midbrain-hindbrain boundary. Based on cell fate studies in amniotes and gene expression analysis, it is likely that the cerebellum is one of the derivatives of the region of the midbrain-hindbrain boundary. hb, hindbrain; hbv, hindbrain ventricle; eye with lens; ov, otic vesicle with two otoliths. The otic vesicle is located lateral to rhombomere 5. not, notochord. The notochord extends anteriorly to the level of the otic vesicle. fp,floor plate. The floor plate extends anteriorly into the caudal diencephalon. Here and in all other figures anterior is to the left and dorsal is up, except where indicated. Scale bar, 250 μm. Credit text to Schier et al. 1996 Development.

Published 30 years ago, "Mutations affecting the development of the embryonic zebrafish brain" by then Postdoc & first-author @schierlab.bsky.social detailed important embryological events & provided the genetic framework for several hundred studies on zfish brain morphogenesis. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

(A) Principal bone structures in the cranium of 11-dpf zebrafish after alizarin red S staining. Structures used in the morphometric analysis, i.e. operculum, snout, eye, iris and cleithrum, are outlined in white, while the names of other bony structures are indicated in grey. Figure and text taken from https://lnkd.in/emCYuk-Z

Contrary to popular belief, the process of embryo hatching does not signify the end of embryogenesis. According to ‘Stages of Embryonic Development of the Zebrafish’ by Kimmel et al. (1995), the best indicator is when the bony cleithrum forms (around 84 hours post fertilization) 🧪 #ZebrafishFunFacts

Front cover of The Zebrafish Book. It shows images of wildtype and golden (transparent) zebrafish embryos. Text reads, "THE ZEBRAFISH BOOK, A guide for the laboratory use of zebrafish (Danio rerio)"

#ZebrafishFunFacts: Unofficially known as the Zebrafish Bible, "The Zebrafish Book" sought to standardize zfish husbandry in early days of zfish research. Originally published by Monte Westerfield, the book is now in its 5th edition. Previous editions are freely available: zfin.org/zf_info/zfbo... 🧪

Phylogenetic tree showing relationships between zebrafish, mice and cartilaginous fishes. It shows the 3R genome duplication event in teleost lineage. Credit to MacDonald et al. 2018.

Did you know the last common ancestor of #zebrafish and humans was ~450 million years ago? A whole genome duplication event (3R) occurred early in the teleost fish phylogeny. Despite this event, zebrafish and humans have about the same number of chromosomes. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Location of the nasal and maxillary barbels (nb and mb) on a wild type adult zebrafish (AB strain). Image and text taken from LeClair 2010.

Often overlooked by hobbyists & scientists, #zebrafish have two sets of projections on their faces called barbels. These barbels increase in size as the fish grows. They are even capable of regenerating following repeated injury. For more, see journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

As a result, the works of George Streisinger et al was published using Brachydanio rerio, which caused it to go under-appreciated for decades. Luckily, Pubmed, now groups Brachydanio together with Danio following queries for the latter — showcasing the full history of zebrafish. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Flipbook of zebrafish embryogenesis. Taken from December 1996 issue of @dev-journal.bsky.social. Still images from movie by Rolf Karlstrom and Don Kane. Flipping credit to @amjeve.bsky.social. #ZebrafishZunday #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Danio pigment pattern diversity and phenotypes of D. rerio hybrids with other danios. Left and middle columns show phenotypes of several species within Danio, the closely related Devario, and more distant Tanichthys. The group encompasses a range of stripes, bars, uniform, and more complex pigment patterns. Right column shows pigment pattern phenotypes of selected hybrids between D. rerio and other danios. Note that patterns typically resemble D. rerio more closely than the heterospecific danio. Species are not all shown at the same scale. Credit to Parichy 2006.

With more Danio species being described, the genus was split in 1916 with larger species into Danio & the smaller species (such as zebrafish) into Brachydanio. In 1991, the two genera were recombined & most larger species within genus Danio were reclassified into genus Devario. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

On the importance of this genome assembly: "T2T or telomere-to-telomere assemblies are the emerging gold-standard of sequencing technologies. For the first time, the zebrafish community has fully complete genomes of its two most used WT strains: Tu & AB. This is groundbreaking!" #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Cover of the December 1996 issue of Development that describes the results of The Big Screen.

With more than 2.1k citations, 'The identification of genes with unique and essential functions in the development of the zebrafish, Danio rerio' by the CNV Lab highlighted the arduous work that took place during 'The Big Screen'. In total, 1163 mutants were described. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Copy of the original illustration by Francis Hamilton showing (on top) a top-down view of an adult zebrafish and (bottom) a side view of a zebrafish with dinstinct zebra stripes in blue and yellow.

Scottish Physician Francis Hamilton first described the “beautiful” but “insipid” zebrafish in, “An Account of the Fishes Found in the River Ganges and Its Branches” after capturing it in the River Kosi near Nathpur 🇮🇳 in August 1810. Below is a copy of his original illustration. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Image of Professor George Streisinger in his lab at the University of Oregon. He is standing in front of several fish tanks with lots of cables and heaters plugged in. Credit/Permissions to Mate Varga in https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/zeb.2017.1531

#ZebrafishFunFacts: In a 2016 article titled, "The Doctor of Delayed Publications - The remarkable life of George Streisinger", @mvargam.bsky.social takes the reader down memory lane to provide a life history of the Founding Father of #zebrafish research.

🔗 thenode.biologists.com/doctor-delay... 🧪

Differences in inhibitory avoidance, cortisol and brain gene expression in TL and AB zebrafish - PubMed Recently, we established an inhibitory avoidance paradigm in Tupfel Long-Fin (TL) zebrafish. Here, we compared task performance of TL fish and fish from the AB strain; another widely used strain and shown to differ genetically and behaviourally from TL fish. Whole-body cortisol and telencephalic gen …

Unlike ABs, TLs have inhibitory avoidance behavior as a result of decreased activity in their baseline hypothalamus-pituitary-interrenal (HPI)-axis highlighting one of the many differences between wildtype strains. To learn more, see pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25906812/ #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪 2/2

Image of a TL adult zebrafish. Note the patchy spots and long fins. Credit to Alamy.

#ZebrafishFunFacts: Known to hobbyists as the leopard Danio, TL or Tüpfel longfin #zebrafish consist of two alleles (leo and lof). leo is a gap junction protein (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...), while lof is caused by upregulation of a K+ channel (journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...). 🧪 1/2

Image of two zebrafish (Danio rerio). The top is a male with a slender, yellow body. The bottom is a female, which has an egg-bearing belly. Image credit to Vetmeduni Vienna/Zala.

Let's talk about sex! Research suggests natural zebrafish have WZ/ZZ sex chromosomes as evidenced by a single sex-linked region on chromosome 4. This trait is lost in laboratory fish as sex is determined by multiple genes, with influences from the environment. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Image of an adult zebrafish using discarded film slides. There are stripes of dark brown and blue capturing the essence of adult zebrafish

#ZebrafishFunFacts: Using the discarded slide film from his doctoral research, Professor and amateur artist Michael Barresi created a mosaic of an adult #zebrafish.

Learn about his upcoming art installation on human embryos called 'Using Art to Demystify Science': www.smith.edu/news-events/... 🧪

Rumoured photo from the first international workshop on zebrafish at the university of oregon. Image credit to Cecilia Moens. How many people can you spot?

The first international workshop that focused on #zebrafish was convened in 1990 in Eugene, Oregon. Sponsored by NIH and NSF, the gathering of ∼40 scientists sought to evaluate the research potential of the tiny fish. Today, nearly 1,800+ zebrafish labs exist worldwide. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Lateral view of a two-day-old zebrafish embryo that has been stained with cb476 in situ hybridization probe. Many of the structures have been labelled with the corresponding tissue name.

If you've used @zfinmod.bsky.social, you may have noticed in situ expression data by Thisse et al. This comprehensive dataset was generated by Profs. Christine and (late) Bernard Thisse. In total, 8,400+ genes are described in 29,000+ figures at different stages. #ZebrafishFunFacts #ThisseThursday 🧪

Citing ZFIN. We recommend the following formats for citing ZFIN in publications. For a general reference to the database, cite Bradford et al. 2022. For citing a specific entry in ZFIN: [Type of] data for this paper were retrieved from ZFIN, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97404-5274; URL: http://zfin.org/; [the date you retrieved the data cited].

Want an easy way to support your model organism databases? Cite them!

Depending on the #zebrafish data you retrieve from ZFIN, you can show your support by using one of the formats below 🙏 🧪 #ZebrafishFunFacts

Image of downtown Tuebingen near the river. There are quaint German houses that are painted and boats on the river. Credit image to Kevin Thiessen circa 2021

Don’t forget the umlaut! Did you know the wild-type strain ‘Tu’ came from a pet shop in the German town of Reutlingen, a nearby city of Tübingen? This area was one of the sites of “The Big Screen” co-led by Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard in the 1990s. #ZebrafishFunFacts @maxplanckcampus.bsky.social 🧪

Structures of DNA and morpholino oligonucleotides. R and R' denote continuation of the oligomer chain in the 5' or 3' direction, respectively. Credit to Corey & Abrams (2001) Genome Biology.

Published October 25 years ago, “Effective targeted gene ‘knockdown’ in zebrafish” by Nasevicius & Ekker detail use of antisense morpholino-modified oligonucelotides or #morpholinos that inhibit translation. This landmark spurred a revolution in targeted gene knockdown in vivo. #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪