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Evaluation of Neurotoxic Effects in Zebrafish Embryos by Automatic Measurement of Early Motor Behaviors

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Experimental Neurotoxicology Methods

Part of the book series: Neuromethods ((NM,volume 172))

Abstract

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has rapidly become a popular model species for behavioral studies that may be relevant to drug screening and safety toxicology. Zebrafish embryos show a complex behavioral repertoire already a few hours after fertilization. Particularly, early stage zebrafish show characteristic behavioral features such as spontaneous tail coiling (STC) or induced movements when exposed to a short and bright light flash (called photomotor response—PMR). In this chapter, we provide the methods for assessing STC and PMR in zebrafish embryos and to detect changes provoked by chemicals. One of the protocols uses video analysis suitable for automated high-throughput screening. Moreover, both protocols describe the use of automated video analysis by using an open-source integration platform (KNIME® analytics platform), providing a flexible workflow system that can be adapted to a diversity of video recordings. We also provide a toxicological validation of this assay and show that these protocols can be used to provide an automated, high data-content readout for zebrafish behavioral responses.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioanalytical Ecotoxicology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research—UFZ, Leipzig, Germany

    Elisabet Teixidó, Nils Klüver, Afolarin O. Ogungbemi, Eberhard Küster & Stefan Scholz

  2. GRET-Toxicology Unit, Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences, Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutic Chemistry, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Elisabet Teixidó

Authors
  1. Elisabet Teixidó
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  2. Nils Klüver
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  3. Afolarin O. Ogungbemi
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  4. Eberhard Küster
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  5. Stefan Scholz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elisabet Teixidó .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departament de Ciències Fisiològiques, Institut de Neurociènces, Universitat de Barcelona, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Catalunya, Spain

    Jordi Llorens

  2. Departament de Farmacologia, Toxicologia i Química Terapèutica, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain

    Marta Barenys

1 Electronic Supplementary Material

Figure S1

Mean frequency of spontaneous tail coiling (STC) of untreated zebrafish embryos over time. Error bars indicate the standard deviation of n=3 biological replicates of 13-16 embryos each. Solid line describes the polynomial fit of the data (DOCX 49 kb)

Table S1

Configuration of the communication with ffmpeg and external tool node (DOCX 70 kb)

Table S2

Example of plate layout (saved as excel file) for 96 well plate analysis. The layout can be generated using the supplementary file supplied with the KNIME workflow (excel file named animal list). A layout should be generated for each video recording for the PMR and STC analysis in 96 well-plates. (DOCX 17 kb)

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Teixidó, E., Klüver, N., Ogungbemi, A.O., Küster, E., Scholz, S. (2021). Evaluation of Neurotoxic Effects in Zebrafish Embryos by Automatic Measurement of Early Motor Behaviors. In: Llorens, J., Barenys, M. (eds) Experimental Neurotoxicology Methods. Neuromethods, vol 172. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1637-6_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1637-6_17

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-1636-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-1637-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

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