The zebrafish group at BasAM NVH, Aleström Zebrafish Lab (AZLab) founded the National Technology Platform (2008-2012) under the Functional Genomics Program (FUGE), Research Council of Norway. Since 2013 the Zebrafish Platform (zebrafish.no) is integrated together with other species of laboratory animals at NVH as part of Section for Experimental Biomedicine.

 Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is one of the leading model species, “between fruit fly and mouse”, for deciphering the genetic and molecular events underlying vertebrate embryo development and other biological processes. See review article “Alestrom et al. 2006, Zebrafish in functional genomics and aquatic biomedicine”, Genialt 1-2013  and the link on zebrafish.no Home page: About the zebrafish model.

Research

(1) Pluripotency control of the zebrafish embryo and embryo derived cells cultivated in vitro. This research includes advanced omics (transriptomics/RNA-seq and epigenomics/ChIP-chip and ChIP-seq) and development of a protocol for establishment of pluripotent cell cultures. A close collaborationn is established with two internationally recognized groups in this field: Philippe Collas Lab at University of Oslo and Sinnakaruppan Mathavan at Genome Institute of Singapore.

See Publications: 10, 11, 12, 21, 22, 27, 30, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39

(2) Monitoring effects on gene expression (transcript- and epigenomics) and phenotypic effects caused by various environmental exposures. Here the AZLab competence is combined with collaborating groups expertise in toxicology and reproductive physiology: Erik Ropstad, Jan Ludvig Lyche, Jan Erik Paulsen, Ian Mayer (NVH), Ketill Hylland (Univ. Oslo). A special case of environmental exposure is microgravity (µG-omics), conducted by an international research consortium aiming at sending zebrafish on a space shuttle for mimicing effects on astronauts: Marc Müller (Univ. of Liege) and Silvia Bradamante (Univ. of Milan) are in charge of this ESA-funded research project. NVH and AZLab is partner in Centre for Environmental RADiation (CoE CERAD) 2013-2022 (mid-term evaluation 2017). Here the effects on low dose gamma radiation, in combination with UV exposure and other multiple stressors or climate factors like temperature will be studies in several systems, including zebrafish and mouse.

See Publications: 14, 15, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 35, 37

Group members

  • Peter Aleström, Professor, Head of the zebrafish group (AZLab)
  • Liqun Jenny Zhang, Postdoc zebrafish pluripotent stem cells, NVH
  • Håvard Aanes, PhD student, NVH. Bioinformatics of omics analyses (RNA and ChIP-seq).
  • Leonardo Martin Martin, PhD student, NVH. ncRNA analysis.
  • Jan Ludvig Lyche, Researcher, CVM, DVM, ERT (European Registered Toxicologist), NVH Partner CERAD
  • Elisabeth Lie, Ass. professor. AquaLife platform, and NVH Partner CERAD
  • Paul Midtlyng, Professor. Zebrafish pathogen challenge experiments            

Partners:

  • Philippe Collas, Epigenomics and plutipotency control, Collas Lab., Univ. Oslo
  • Erik Ropstad, Head for Section of Experimental Biomedicine, NVH
  • Jan Roger Torp Sørby, Head Engineer, Facility manager zebrafish unit
  • Jørn Ulheim, Cryogenetics of zebrafish sperm. Cryogenetics AS, Hamar.
  • Marc Müller, Microgravity genomics, ESA, ULg, Belgium
  • Silvia Bradamante, Microgravity genomics, ESA, University of Milan, Italy.
  • Sinnakaruppan Mathavan, RNA-sequencing, GIS, Singapore
  • Cecilia Winata, Postdoc, GIS, Singapore 

Publications 2000-.