Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Apr;13(2):87-94.
doi: 10.1089/zeb.2015.1155. Epub 2016 Jan 15.

Alternate Immersion in an External Glucose Solution Differentially Affects Blood Sugar Values in Older Versus Younger Zebrafish Adults

Victoria P Connaughton  1 , Cassandra Baker  1 , Lauren Fonde  1 , Emily Gerardi  1 , Carly Slack  1
Affiliations

Alternate Immersion in an External Glucose Solution Differentially Affects Blood Sugar Values in Older Versus Younger Zebrafish Adults

Victoria P Connaughton et al. Zebrafish. 2016 Apr.

Abstract

Recently, zebrafish have been used to examine hyperglycemia-induced complications (retinopathy and neuropathy), as would occur in individuals with diabetes. Current models to induce hyperglycemia in zebrafish include glucose immersion and streptozotocin injections. Both are effective, although neither is reported to elevate blood sugar values for more than 1 month. In this article, we report differences in hyperglycemia induction and maintenance in young (4-11 months) versus old (1-3 years) zebrafish adults. In particular, older fish immersed in an alternating constant external glucose solution (2%) for 2 months displayed elevated blood glucose levels for the entire experimental duration. In contrast, younger adults displayed only transient hyperglycemia, suggesting the fish were acclimating to the glucose exposure protocol. However, modifying the immersion protocol to include a stepwise increasing glucose concentration (from 1% → 2%→3%) resulted in maintained hyperglycemia in younger zebrafish adults for up to 2 months. Glucose-exposed younger fish collected after 8 weeks of exposure also displayed a significant decrease in wet weight. Taken together, these data suggest different susceptibilities to hyperglycemia in older and younger fish and that stepwise increasing glucose concentrations of 1% are required for maintenance of hyperglycemia in younger adults, with higher concentrations of glucose resulting in greater increases in blood sugar values.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources