Zebrafish heart as a model for human cardiac electrophysiology.

ABSTRACT: The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become a popular model for human cardiac diseases and pharmacology including cardiac arrhythmias and its electrophysiological basis. Notably, the phenotype of zebrafish cardiac action potential is similar to the human cardiac action potential in that both have a long plateau phase. Also the major inward and outward current systems are qualitatively similar in zebrafish and human hearts. However, there are also significant differences in ionic current composition between human and zebrafish hearts, and the molecular basis and pharmacological properties of human and zebrafish cardiac ionic currents differ in several ways. Cardiac ionic currents may be produced by non-orthologous genes in zebrafish and humans, and paralogous gene products of some ion channels a

SUBMITTER: Vornanen M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4960994 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature