Hajam, YA; Rani, R; Sharma, P; Kumar, R; Verma, SK; ,
Animals are used as model organisms to understand various important biological processes as well as to acquire information which can give an idea how other organisms work. Different organisms are used including rat, guinea pig, rabbit, goat, squirrel, hamster, and fish (Catla catla, Labeo rohita, Channa punctatus, and Danio rerio) as well to study various biological aspects. For the validation of drug and chemical, it is important to study their toxicity tests at biochemical, serological, histological, and molecular. Generally rat or mice are used to study these toxic natures of any drug or chemical, but these mammalian models have long gestational period, are expensive, and also need special conditions for rearing. Development of embryo occurs outside the mother womb and is optically clear, and the duration of blastula stage ranges up to 3 h; however, gastrulation ranges up to 5 h, and when the embryo becomes 18 h old, the ears, eyes, segmented muscles, and brain are found well developed and are transparent. Due to these specific features, zebrafish is widely used to study the reproductive toxicity of various chemicals, drugs, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), to unravel their effect on body physiology, histoarchitecture, as well as molecular mechanism. Moreover, the use of zebrafish as a model is increasing day by day to different genetic aspects in aquaculture species and in toxicogenomics and to establish a zebrafish disease model applicable in human biomedicines. Therefore, the present review summarizes the silent features of zebrafish to predict its use as a model organism to study various reproductive processes.