A Simple Blood Vessel Imaging Protocol for Live Zebrafish Larva

Zebrafish larva is a simple model system to study blood vessel development because of its excellent optical properties. Current methods to study blood vessels in zebrafish involve utilizing either blood vessel-specific transgenic lines or specialized techniques such as microangiography and video capillaroscopy. In this study, we have developed a simple protocol using ImageJ to observe the blood vessels of live zebrafish larva at different developmental stages, namely 1- to 4-day postfertilization (dpf). To validate this protocol, we treated 1 dpf zebrafish embryos with 100 mu M quercetin, and analyzed the impaired development of subintestinal vein in the quercetin-treated 3 dpf larvae.

Automated summary

Zebrafish larva is a simple and effective model system for studying blood vessel development due to its excellent optical properties. In this study, researchers developed a simple protocol using ImageJ to observe the blood vessels of live zebrafish larva at different stages of development. The protocol was validated by treating zebrafish embryos with quercetin and analyzing the impaired development of subintestinal vein in the larvae.