Modeling intestinal disorders using zebrafish

Although the zebrafish was initially developed as a model system to study embryonic development, it has gained increasing attention as an advantageous system to investigate human diseases, including intestinal disorders. Zebrafish embryos develop rapidly, and their digestive system is fully functional and visible by 5days post fertilization. There is a large degree of homology between the intestine of zebrafish and higher vertebrate organisms in terms of its cellular composition and function as both a digestive and immune organ. Furthermore, molecular pathways regulating injury and immune responses are highly conserved. In this chapter, we provide an overview of studies addressing developmental and physiological processes relevant to human intestinal disease. These studies include those related to congenital disorders, host-microbiota interactions, inflammatory diseases, motility disorders, and intestinal cancer. We also highlight the utility of zebrafish to functionally validate candidate genes identified through mutational analyses and genome-wide association studies, and discuss methodologies to investigate the intestinal biology that are unique to zebrafish.