Zebrafish: a tool to study hemostasis and thrombosis.
OBJECTIVE
In the past eight years our laboratory has developed the zebrafish model to study hemostasis and thrombosis. The purpose of this review is to explore current developments involving the zebrafish model in the study of hemostasis and thrombosis because the time is now ripe to apply this model to identify novel players that participate in hemostasis and thrombosis.


RESULTS
In the past twelve months, three papers appeared in the hemostasis and thrombosis area using the zebrafish model. The first one is a review article that summarizes establishment of the zebrafish model to study hemostasis and thrombosis. The second study is a methodological paper describing assays for measuring hemostasis and thrombosis by inducing vascular occlusion in zebrafish larvae. The third paper describes a knockdown of prothrombin in zebrafish, which recapitulates knockout studies in mouse, and marks the beginning of studies in the hemostasis and thrombosis area by this new knockdown technology. In addition to the above papers, there is one abstract that describes kinetics of thrombocyte and thrombocyte-microparticle recruitment in laser-induced arterial thrombus formation in zebrafish.


CONCLUSIONS
With the above advances, the zebrafish model has now matured to the point that it can address more important questions in the hemostasis and thrombosis area using genetic approaches. This review therefore summarizes the issues described in the above papers along with thoughts about future progress of the zebrafish model as a tool to study hemostasis and thrombosis.
Jagadeeswaran
Pudur
P
Department of Cellular and Structural Biology, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA. jagadeeswaran@uthscsa.edu
D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D006487:Hemostasis; D023421:Models, Animal; D013927:Thrombosis; D015027:Zebrafish