The zebrafish offers unique possibilities for in vivo analyses in a vertebrate organism. The zebrafish genome is completely sequenced, 71.4 percent of human genes have zebrafish orthologues, powerful genetic tools are available, and the use of zebrafish for modeling a large number of human diseases is well established. Because the fertilization and development is external and the embryo is optically transparent, observations to the level of individual cells within the living embryo can be done by direct microscopy. The development of the zebrafish embryo occurs very rapidly: 17 hours post fertilization the embryo is capable of movement, 22 hours post fertilization the heart is beating, and on the third day of development, the embryo hatches and is capable of swimming.

The zebrafish facility houses wild-type zebrafish strains and selected transgenic lines, in which fluorescent reporters are expressed under specific promoter control.

Standard technologies available include

• Targeted knockdown
• Transient overexpression
• Generation of knockout zebrafish lines
• Generation of transgenic zebrafish lines
• Housing and maintenance of genetically modified zebrafish lines
• Gene expression analysis (incl. whole mount in situ hybridization)
• Immunostaining
• Phenotyping including
  • Morphological analyses
  • Specific stainings
  • Functional assays (contact us for details)

We provide advice in experimental design, training, and access to the zebrafish facility for users, and alternatively, we can carry out experiments. Charges are based on actual costs.

Contact

Any questions can be directed to Kasper Kjær-Sørensen (kks@mbg.au.dk) or Claus Oxvig (co@mbg.au.dk).