Review on the use of zebrafish embryos to study the effects of anesthetics during early development

Abstract

Over the years, the potential toxicity of anesthetics has raised serious concerns about its safe use during pregnancy. As evidence emerged from research in animal models, showing that some anesthetic drugs are potential teratogenic, the determination of the risk of exposures to anesthetic drugs at early life stages became mandatory. However, due to inaccessibility and ethical constrains related to experimental conditions, the use of early life stages in mammalian models is limited. In this regard, some animal and nonanimal models have been suggested to surpass mammalian use in experimentation. Among them, the zebrafish embryo test has been recognized as a promising alternative in toxicology research, as well as an inexpensive and practical test. Substantial information collected from developmental research following compounds exposure, has contributed to the application of zebrafish assays in research, although only a few studies have focused on the use of early life stages of zebrafish to evaluate the developmental effects of anesthetics. Based on the recent advances of science and technology, there is a clear potential for zebrafish early life stages to provide new insights into anesthetics teratogenicity. This review provides an overview of recent anesthesia research using zebrafish embryos, demonstrating its usefulness to the anesthesia field, discussing the recent findings on various aspects related to the effects of anesthetics during early life development and the strengths and limitations of this model system.

Keywords:

• Anesthetics
• zebrafish
• teratogen
• development
• embryogenesis

Declaration of interest

The authors' affiliations are as shown on the cover page. The authors declare to have no conflict of interest and all approved the manuscript for publication. This manuscript was financially supported by European Investment Funds by FEDER/COMPETE/POCI– Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme, under projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006958, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029542 and FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028683 and National Funds by FCT - “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia”, under the projects PTDC/CVT-WEL/4672/2012, PTDC/CVT-CVT/29542/2017 and UID/AGR/04033/2019. The authors have sole responsibility for the writing and content of the paper. Preparation of this review was conducted during the normal course of the authors' employment without any external support. None of the authors have appeared during the last five years in any regulatory or legal proceedings related to the contents of this paper.