Zebrafish tagged posts

Seeing the Future: Zebrafish Regenerates Fully Functional Photoreceptor Cells and Restores its Vision

A microscopic image displaying a field of small, round shapes against a dark background. The shapes are predominantly green. Some shapes have magenta-colored spots or protrusions, creating a mixed pattern of green, white, and magenta. The image is overlaid with a rectangular inset, zooming in on a section of the shapes, where the same color patterns are visible, but in greater detail.
Zebrafish photoreceptor cells stimulated with blue light show correct electrical activity. The picture was taken using the microscope that was custom-built for this study.

Blinding diseases lead to permanent vision loss by damaging photoreceptor cells, which humans cannot naturally regenerate. While researchers are working on new methods to replace or regenerate these cells, the crucial question is whether these regenerated photoreceptors can fully restore vision. Now, a team of researchers led by Prof. Michael Brand at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD) of Dresden University of Technology has made an important step forward...

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Team Creates Synthetic Enzymes to Unravel Molecular Mysteries

Dr. P.C. Dave P. Dingal uses zebrafish to understand how developmental signaling is coordinated in animal embryos. Zebrafish are ideal models for observing signaling proteins because of their similarity with the human genome and their size.

A University of Texas at Dallas bioengineer has developed synthetic enzymes that can control the behavior of the signaling protein Vg1, which plays a key role in the development of muscle, bone and blood in vertebrate embryos.

The team of researchers is using a new approach, called the Synthetic Processing (SynPro) system, in zebrafish to study how Vg1 is formed...

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Zebrafish teach Researchers more about Atrial Fibrillation

Stock photo of a zebrafish, which has not been part of the study. Photo: Colourbox
Stock photo of a zebrafish, which has not been part of the study. Photo: Colourbox

Researchers from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences have shown a possible link between a genetic variation and the widespread type of cardiac arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation.

The scientists conducted the study in zebrafish, which is a recognised scientific animal model within cardiac research.

Here, researchers from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the Max Planck Institute in Germany put special focus on the gene pitx2c. The result came as a surprise to them, says Assistant Professor Pia Lundegaard from the Department of Biomedical Sciences.

‘It seems that we may also have to think of atrial fibrillation as an atrial cardiomyopathy – that is, a challenged heart – rather than...

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