Zebrafish Screening Core Facility

The HTZSC is a unit to support high-throughput screening of drugs or toxins to assess safety, effectiveness, or toxicity for humans using zebrafish. Imaging and behavioral assays can be used to gather information vital to drug development or toxicity testing. The two cornerstones of the HTZSC are listed below:

1. The Vertebrate Automated Screening Technology (VAST) BioImager, from Union Biometrica, Holliston, MA, is designed to image large numbers of zebrafish larvae; thus, it is conducive to developing high-throughput assays to analyze the morphology of zebrafish larvae exposed to potential drug candidates or toxins. The VAST unit is supported by a high-resolution camera to document morphological alterations or fluorescent labeling within larvae.
2. The DanioVision activity tracking system from Noldus Information Technology,  Leesburg, VA, can be used to assess activity impacted by drugs or toxins in zebrafish embryos and larvae using a high-throughput format. 

Zebrafish are housed in two rooms on three double-sided Aquaneering racks systems holding 572 tanks. The racks are supported by centralized filtration systems, which process the supplied reverse osmosis water. The rack, water supply, and filtration constitute a recirculating system (JAALAS 48:65-75; 2009).

Equipment within the ARC is for shared use.

The following pieces of equipment are also available in the HTZSC:

• Two 100-liter Zebrafish Embryo Spawning Chambers with removable egg traps
• One hundred Zebrafish Polycarbonate Crossing Tank (1.0 L) with lid and insert
• Three incubators to rear embryos and larvae: VWR General Purpose Incubator (side by side), a Fisher Sci Isotemp incubator, and a Thermo Scientific Precision Incubator for rearing zebrafish embryos and larvae
• Nikon Stereomicroscope with a teaching head supporting the ASI microinjection system
• Six 20 L and three 2 L Brine Shrimp Hatchers with stands
• VAST BioImager for Union Biometrica supported by an Olympus MVX10 macrofluorescence microscope with a Hamamatsu Flash camera and Image Pro software supported with a Dell PC for  morphological analysis of zebrafish larvae
• Daniovision Tracking System for zebrafish screening supported with EthoVision Tracking Software for assessments