Diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome models studied in zebrafish – further relevance for the neuropsychiatric disorders-related manifestations
Diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome models studied in zebrafish – further relevance for the neuropsychiatric disorders-related manifestations

Summary/Abstract: In the recent decades, the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, as well as endocrine and metabolic diseases, which are affecting the quality of human life, is constantly increasing. Currently, given that the prevalence of metabolic diseases, obesity and diabetes is constantly increasing worldwide, there is an increased interest in developing new therapies and in creating better experimental models for mimicking the complex human symptomatology. This could result in a faster diagnosis with lower cost, as well as in advances of the so-called personalized medicine. Among the animals that could be experimental models for these diseases, there is an increased interest in the zebrafish (Danio rerio), giving that the qualities that recommend it are its small size, the need for a small living space, relatively low costs of use, high homology to the human genome, high fertility and mostly the formation of the major organs at 24 hours after fertilization. In this way, the presence in zebrafish of all the key organs that are important and necessary for the complex metabolic control, as well as the similarities in lipid metabolism and the adipogenic pathway between zebrafish and mammals, could make this small organism an ideal tool for the study and the better understanding of adipogenesis, diabetes, obesity and the complex pathological processes which are characterizing the metabolic diseases. This could have an increased relevance in the context of our previous work describing neuropsychiatric models in zebrafish (focusing for example on dementia), considering also the important connections that might exist between the general metabolic disorders and most of the neuropsychiatric-related manifestations.

• Details
• Contents