Zebrafish as an in vivo high-throughput model for genotoxicity

Compounds routinely used to increase the quality of life and combat disease undergo stringent potency and biosafety tests before approval. However, based on the outcome of ongoing research, new norms need to be effected to ensure that the compounds conform to biosafety at all target levels of activity. Whereas in vitro tests used to assess biosafety lack the potency and the translational attribute of a whole animal, mammalian preclinical models are expensive and time exhaustive. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has emerged as an attractive alternative for biosafety studies due to its small size, genetics, breeding capabilities, and most importantly, similarity at the molecular and physiological levels with humans. It has been used extensively for testing various forms of toxicity, including developmental toxicity, cardiotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, and hepatotoxicity. We review here the utility of zebrafish as a powerful, sensitive, quantitative, noninvasive, and high-throughput whole-animal assay to screen for toxicity. Different forms of toxicity will be discussed briefly before we highlight the present state of genotoxicity study in zebrafish. This review, a first in this research area, will serve as a comprehensive introduction to the field of genotoxicity assay using zebrafish, a nascent but promising field that assays compounds for DNA damage. We also discuss possible approaches that could potentially be pursued to overcome some of the shortcomings in current genotoxic studies.