Zebrafish Unit

Responsible person: Nikodém Zezula, Ph.D., M.Sc.

The main purpose of this unit is to support research programs that require work with the zebrafish model (Danio rerio), also known as "zebrafish." In recent decades, zebrafish have become an essential model for biomedical research, finding use in both basic research and preclinical studies aimed at personalized medicine. The unit will provide basic breeding and production of new transgenic zebrafish lines. The key element of the unit will therefore be the most advanced technical solution for zebrafish breeding and the associated instrumentation and know-how for experimental manipulation of this increasingly popular model.

Professionally trained staff will, among other things, provide service and training in microinjection, methods of preparing transgenic lines, and the preparation and screening of so-called xenografts (human cells implanted into zebrafish embryos or adults). The expected future function of the unit is to provide facilities for the production of transgenic and mutant lines, including training of personnel for this type of experiment. Together with the European Zebrafish Resource Center (Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, KIT, Germany), the unit will serve as a repository of live fish for the mutant, transgenic, and knock-in lines created here. A sperm cryopreservation system will ensure that all newly created fish models are doubly backed up and will not be lost in the event of an accident or natural disaster.

What services/products will the unit provide?

Basic Zebrafish husbandry

Zebrafish housing and maintenance of your lines
Zebrafish import – do you have interesting fish you would like to obtain? We will arrange import and spawning
spawning – do you need eggs? Simply book a slot in the booking system

Consultations on the feasibility of Zebrafish-based experiments – how zebrafish can transform your project

at present, we maintain more than 60 different lines, ranging from reporter lines for various organs and cell populations to loss-of-function mutations in multiple pathways

Training

animal handling, spawning, injections

Injections

provided both as a service and as rental of space and injection equipment

Genotyping

Sorting of fluorescently labelled fish

Knock-out (KO) line generation

basic CRISPR/Cas9 currently, with precise genome editing (Prime Editing) planned

Knock-in (KI) line generation

Tol2 transgenesis – reporter line production
fluorescent protein tagging

Basic behavioural assays in Danio rerio

swimming test
light–dark preference test
novel tank test

Basic toxicity testing of compounds

In cooperation:

Xenograft experiments

the Tissue Culture Unit prepares suitable, labelled cancer cell lines, while we perform cell injections, treatments, and subsequent imaging in collaboration

Preparation of samples for downstream analyses

for proteomics, genomics, flow cytometry, histology, and other core facilities

(please consult specific details in advance with Dr. Zezula; email: zezula@sci.muni.cz)