For at least 150 years, biological scientists have congregated at marine laboratories, located at the edge of the sea, to explore aquatic life. The purpose of this minireview is to offer a brief perspective on the relevance of this activity to our knowledge of human physiology and disease, drawing heavily on the experience of the authors and without attempting to offer a comprehensive history of the many contributions of marine models to biomedical research.
JampolLM, EpsteinFH. Sodium-potassium-activated adenosine triphosphatase and osmotic regulation by fishes. Am J Physiol218: 607–611, 1970.
8.
MarshallWS, BrysonSE. Transparent mechanisms of seawater teleosts chloride cells: an inclusive model of a multifunctional cell. Comp Biochem Physiol119A: 97–106, 1998.
9.
HokinLE, DahlJL, DeupreeJD, DioxonJF, HackneyJF, PerdueJF. Studies on the characterization of the sodium-potassium transport adenosine triphosphatase. X. Purification of the enzyme from the rectal gland of Squalus acanthias. J Biol Chem248: 2593–2605, 1973.
10.
EveloffJ, KinneR, Kinne-SaffranE, MurerH, SilvaP, EpsteinFH, StoffJ, KinterWB. Coupled sodium and chloride transport into plasma membrane vesicles prepared from dogfish rectal gland. Pflugers Arch378: 87–92, 1978.
11.
StokesJB. Passive NaCl transport in the flounder urinary bladder: predominance of a cellular pathway. Am J Physiol255: F229–F236, 1988.
12.
MarinTH. Studies involving carbonic anhydrase at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, 1952–1996. In: EpsteinFH, Ed. A Laboratory by the Sea. Rhinebeck, NY: The River Press, pp 151–161, 1998.
13.
BeyenbachKW. Kidneys sans glomeruli. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol286: F811–F827, 2004.
14.
HaffterP, GranatoM, BrandM, MullinsMC, HammerschmidtM, KaneDA, OdenthalJ, van EedenFJ, JiangYJ, HeisenbergCP, KelshRN, Furutani-SeikiM, VogelsangE, BeuchleD, SchachU, FabianC, Nusslein-VolhardC. The identification of genes with unique and essential functions in the development of the zebrafish, Danio rerio.Development123: 1–36, 1996.
15.
StainierDY, FouquetB, ChenJN, WarrenKS, WeinsteinBM, MeilerSE, MohideenMA, NeuhaussSC, Solnica-KrezelL, SchierAF, ZwartkruisF, StempleDL, MalickiJ, DrieverW, FishmanMC. Mutations affecting the formation and function of the cardiovascular system in the zebrafish embryo. Development123: 285–292, 1996.
16.
DrieverW, FishmanMC. The zebrafish: heritable disorders in transparent embryos. J Clin Invest97: 1788–1794, 1996.
17.
ShinJT, FishmanMC. From zebrafish to human: modular medical models. Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet3: 311–340, 2002.
HeasmanJ. Morpholino oligos: making sense of antisense?Dev Biol243: 209–214, 2002.
20.
FanL, AlestromA, AlestromP, CollodiP. Production of zebrafish germline chimeras from cultured cells. Methods Mol Biol254: 289–300, 2004.
21.
FishmanMC, StainierDY. Cardiovascular development. Prospects for a genetic approach. Circ Res74: 757–763, 1994.
22.
LawsonND, WeinsteinBM. In vivo imaging of embryonic vascular development using transgenic zebrafish. Dev Biol248: 307–318, 2002.
23.
ChildsS, ChenJN, GarrityDM, FishmanMC. Patterning of angiogenesis in the zebrafish embryo. Development129: 973–982, 2002.
24.
Torres-VazquezJ, GitlerAD, FraserSD, BerkJA, PhamVN, FishmanMC, ChildsS, EpsteinJA, WeinsteinBM. Semaphorin-plexin signaling guides patterning of the developing vasculature. Dev Cell, 7: 117–123, 2004.
25.
GitlerAD, LuMM, EpsteinJA. PlexinD1 and semaphoring signaling are required in endothelial cells for cardiovascular development. Dev Cell, 7: 107–116, 2004.
26.
ZhongTP, RosenbergM, MohideenMA, WeinsteinB, FishmanMC. Gridlock, an HLH gene required for assembly of the aorta in zebrafish. Science287: 1820–1824, 2000.
27.
WeinsteinBM, StempleDL, DrieverW, FishmanMC. Gridlock, a localized heritable vascular patterning defect in the zebrafish. Nat Med1: 1143–1147, 1995.
28.
PiotrowskiT, AhnDG, SchillingTF, NairS, RuvinskyI, GeislerR, RauchGJ, HaffterP, ZonLI, ZhouY, FooltH, DawidIB, HoRK. The zebraflsh van Gogh mutation disrupts tbx1, which is involved in the DiGeorge deletion syndrome in humans. Development130: 5043–5052, 2003.
29.
JeromeLA, PapaioannouVE. DiGeorge syndrome phenotype in mice mutant for the T-box gene, Tbxl. Nat Genet27: 286–291, 2001.
MullerF, BladerP, StrahleU. Search for enhancers: teleost models in comparative genomic and transgenic analysis of eis regulatory elements. Bioessays24: 564–572, 2002.
