Researchers have discovered similarities between the human genome and zebrafish, which can help in understanding and perhaps lead to cures for human diseases, Medical Xpress reported.
Researchers say zebrafish contain tissues and have some major organs similar to humans. This may prove beneficial as zebrafish can serve as a model to develop better treatments for human diseases.
According to the researchers, zebrafish has 26,000 genes and 70 percent of these are similar to humans and 84 percent of the genes associated with human diseases have zebrafish counterparts. Transparent embryos of zebrafish give scientists an added benefit to study the developments of internal organs much easily, the report said.
"There are several advantages of the zebrafish model," said Dr. Leonard Zon, MD, Children's Hospital of Boston MA. "We can readily create variations in their genome that are relevant to human health and disease. This has allowed a greater understanding of gene function and the finding of new targets for drug treatments."
Dr. Zon said that using zebra fish as a lab model for human disease research can be very helpful in biomedicine. "Several small molecules discovered using the zebrafish system have recently entered into clinical trials," he said in a statement. "The availability of the genome sequence, coupled with the rapid expansion of disease models and chemical screening ability, ensures that the zebrafish system has a major place in biomedicine."
Dr. Ross Kettleborough, first author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, says zebrafish models have widely been used in labs to confirm the identity of a gene which triggers a rare bone related disease. The similarities zebrafish carries will play a vital role in swift growth of medical and human treatments.
The zebrafish models have previously been used to study human diseases which helped in finding genes responsible for the growth of cancer.
"Our challenge is to develop a comprehensive, functional understanding of all human genes as quickly as possible," says Dr Derek Stemple, lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Our systematic analysis of zebrafish gene function will advance understanding of human disease."
The genome of the zebrafish was reported in a British journal Nature.
