The Reproductive Biology and Spawning of Zebrafish in Laboratory Settings - Zebrafish: Methods for Assessing Drug Safety and Toxicity - page 1

Chapter 1

The Reproductive Biology
and Spawning of Zebrafish
in Laboratory Settings

Christian Lawrence
Aquatic Resources Program, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, MA, USA

1.1 INTRODUCTION

There is growing demand for new, robust, and cost-effective ways to assess
chemicals for their effect on human health, particularly during early development.
Traditional mammalian models for toxicology are both expensive and difficult to
work with during embryonic stages. The zebrafish ( Danio rerio )hasanumberof
features that make it an excellent alternativemodel for toxicology studies, including
its small size, rapid external development, optical transparency during early
development, permeability to small molecules, amenability to high-throughput
screening, and genetic similarity to humans (Lieschke and Currie, 2007; Peterson
et al., 2008).
Amajor underpinning of the use of zebrafish in this arena is their great fecundity,
which supports high-throughput analysis and increases the statistical power of
experiments. Adult female zebrafish can spawn on a daily basis, and individual
clutch sizes can exceed 1000 embryos (Spence and Smith, 2005; Castranova et al.,
2011). However, consistent production at these high levels is greatly dependent upon
sound management of laboratory breeding stocks, which must be grounded in a
thorough understanding of the reproductive biology and behavior of the animal.
Management practices must also address key elements of husbandry, most notably
water quality, nutrition, and behavioral and genetic management.

Some information in this chapter was originally published in Harper and Lawrence, The Laboratory
Zebrafish, CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group, 2011. Used with permission.