Abstract
Zebrafish is becoming a popular animal model in neuropharmacology and drug discovery, mainly due to its ease of handling and low costs involved in maintenance and experimental work. This animal displays a series of complex behaviours that makes it useful for assessing the effects of psychoactive drugs. Here, adult zebrafish were used for assessment of the anxiolytic and anti-addictive properties of UFR2709, a nicotinic receptor (nAChR) antagonist, using two behavioural paradigms to test for addiction, the novel tank diving test to assess anxiety and the conditioned place preference (CPP). Furthermore, the expression of nAChR subunits α4 and α7 was measured in the zebrafish brain. The results show that UFR2709 exhibits an anxiolytic effect on zebrafish and blocks the effect evoked by nicotine on CPP. Moreover, UFR2709 significantly decreased the expression of α4 nicotinic receptor subunit. This indicates that UFR2709 might be a useful drug for the treatment of nicotine addiction.
Highlights
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has been used as a model organism in several fields of research for the past 40 years
We show that UFR2709 blocks the effect evoked by nicotine on the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm and affect the the levels levels of of mRNA
Adult fish were exposed to nicotine (n = 20) or UFR2709 (n = 20) for 3 min and were maintained for another 5 min in a holding tank before testing the swimming behaviour in the test maintained for another 5 min in a holding tank before testing the swimming behaviour in the test tank for a period of 5 min
Summary
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has been used as a model organism in several fields of research for the past 40 years This animal model displays relevant traits that makes it a very powerful tool: fast development, high fecundity that provides a large number of individuals, cheap maintenance, Molecules 2020, 25, 2998; doi:10.3390/molecules25132998 www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules. This animal model displays relevant traits that makes it a very powerful tool: fast development, high fecundity that provides a large number of individuals, cheap maintenance, and Molecules 2020, 25, 2998 ease of manipulation [1]. Zebrafish exhibits a variety of complex brain-related behaviours that anxiety, stress [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Among these, anxiety [10,11,12]
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