Respiratory depression and analgesia by opioid drugs in freely behaving larval zebrafish.

ABSTRACT: An opioid epidemic is spreading in North America with millions of opioid overdoses annually. Opioid drugs, like fentanyl, target the mu opioid receptor system and induce potentially lethal respiratory depression. The challenge in opioid research is to find a safe pain therapy with analgesic properties but no respiratory depression. Current discoveries are limited by lack of amenable animal models to screen candidate drugs. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is an emerging animal model with high reproduction and fast development, which shares remarkable similarity in their physiology and genome to mammals. However, it is unknown whether zebrafish possesses similar opioid system, respiratory and analgesic responses to opioids than mammals. In freely-behaving larval zebrafish, fentanyl depresses

SUBMITTER: Zaig S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8060028 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature