Cardiac and somatic parameters in zebrafish: tools for the evaluation of cardiovascular function

Cardiovascular diseases are a worldwide public health problem. To date, extensive research has been conducted to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms that trigger cardiovascular diseases and to evaluate therapeutic options. Animal models are widely used to achieve these goals, and zebrafish have emerged as a low-cost model that produces rapid results. Currently, a large body of research is devoted to the cardiovascular development and diverse cardiovascular disorders of zebrafish embryos and larvae. However, less research has been conducted on adult zebrafish specimens. In this study, we evaluated a method to obtain and to evaluate morphometric parameters (of both the entire animal and the heart) of adult zebrafish. We used these data to calculate additional parameters, such as body mass index, condition factor and cardiac somatic index. This method and its results can be used as reference for future studies that aim to evaluate the pathophysiological aspects of the zebrafish cardiovascular system.