Zebrafish as an alternative method for toxicological studies

According to the Directive 2010/63/EU fish embryos do not fall into regulatory frameworks dealing with animal experimentation. Therefore, in compliance with the 3Rs principle, zebrafish embryos are considered as replacement or refinement methods. Since more and more industrial chemicals are recognized causes of skin sensitization, it is needed a thorough understanding of the mechanisms to make predictions of the toxic potential of novel compounds. Thus, the FET test was performed and up to four apical observations were recorded as indicators of lethality: coagulation of fertilized eggs, lack of somite formation, no detachment of the tail bud from the yolk sac and lack of heartbeat. Then, in order to assess whether the skin sensitization due to chemical incubation was really measurable, the Fish Interleukin 8 (IL8) ELISA Kit was carried out. The preliminary results obtained so far seem encouraging. However, they need to be confirmed through further ELISA tests and compared with other in vitro methods.