title: Intubation-based anesthesia for long-term time-lapse imaging of adult zebrafish.
abstract: Zebrafish possess the remarkable ability to regenerate a vast variety of tissues, even as adults. However, direct imaging of regenerative processes in adult zebrafish remains challenging because of the lack of suitable anesthesia protocols. Here we present a description of an intubation-based anesthesia procedure that we developed to enable us to image regenerating zebrafish fins and which can be used to continuously anesthetize adult zebrafish for up to 2 d. Fish are immobilized in an imaging chamber followed by oral intubation. Subsequent delivery of anesthetic-containing water is achieved via a peristaltic pump. The setup of the system will take ∼90 min for two adult zebrafish, and it requires only a little previous experience of working with zebrafish. Our protocol will enable the imaging of regenerative processes in the fin and other tissues, and the investigation of processes that require long-term anesthesia, such as immune responses and surgical procedures.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Muenster, Germany.
authors.forename: Cong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Muenster, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Volkery
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Muenster, Germany.
authors.forename: Arndt F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Siekmann
mesh_terms: D000758:Anesthesia / Q000379:methods; D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000295:instrumentation; D058500:Animal Fins / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D000818:Animals; D002465:Cell Movement; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D007440:Intubation / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D012038:Regeneration; D059008:Time-Lapse Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000502:physiology*