Use of zebrafish as a model animal for gerontology

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26520101
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 特設分野
• Research Field: Neo-Gerontology
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Kobayashi Makoto 筑波大学, 医学医療系, 講師 (50254941)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-07-18 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: ゼブラフィッシュ / 老年度 / 運動量 / 聴力 / 学習力 / Nrf2経路 / 食品ファイトケミカル

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We investigated a usefulness of zebrafish for understanding effects of lifestyle and genetic background on aging. As a result, 1) we succeeded in setting up the evaluation system of zebrafish aging degree , and showed that swimming and hearing abilities were lower in aged fish than young fish; 2) we found that there is a tendency that old male fish was healthy when we bred it together with young females; 3) to elucidate the relationship between aging and the Nrf2 pathway, a cellular master antioxidant system, we compared aging degrees of wild-type and Nrf2-mutant zebrafish, and showed that there was no clear difference between these two at the middle age stage; 4) we demonstrated that zebrafish is a good system to evaluate the effects of food phytochemicals. From these results, we conclude that zebrafish will be a useful model for gerontology, while more larger-scale and longer-term studies will be required to obtain meaningful data.

Free Research Field

分子発生生物学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

集団飼育と行動学的表現型解析のし易さ、さらには飲食品関連物質の機能性解析のし易さを示せたことから、学術的意義は、ゼブラフィッシュの老年学研究モデルとしての有効性、特に健康や老化における遺伝子機能の解析に優れた解析系となることを示唆した点である。一方、ヒト健康への応用に向けた説得力のある有意なデータを示すことができず、社会的意義という観点からは、解析数を増やすなどより大規模な研究を行う必要があることとヒト解析と連動させた研究を行う必要があることが分かり、今後の研究に向けての課題となった。