The Use of the Zebrafish Model to Aid in Drug Discovery and Target Validation

The zebrafish is fast becoming a leading and prominent model organism used by researchers for developmental biology, and research in modeling human diseases in zebrafish is being undertaken at a fast pace. Many therapeutic areas, including oncology and cardiovascular diseases to name a few all have zebrafish models based on known disease mechanisms that are translatable to modes of action in humans. Many novel assays have been and are continuing to be developed to study human disease in zebrafish. Prominent methods to identify novel drug targets within the organism include, chemical mutagenesis, insertional mutagenesis and high throughput small molecule screens. Methods to validate potential drug targets include reverse and forward genetics, transgenesis and gene knockout. This review summarizes the important contributions made using the zebrafish model in recent years to aid in drug discovery and target validations in the highly important medical field of cancer medicine, cardiovascular disease and the emerging role of the zebrafish model as a platform for toxicity screening.