Zebrafish eleutheroembryos as an alternative system for screening chemicals disrupting the mammalian thyroid gland morphogenesis and function.

The importance and irreversibility of the effects of thyroid hormone deficiency on human brain development highlight the importance of identifying environmental agents that interfere with thyroid gland morphogenesis and function. Zebrafish eleutheroembryos are currently used by many pharmaceutical companies in drug discovery as a vertebrate model, not subjected to regulations for animal experiments, that provides an intermediate step between in vitro and rodent assay. The mechanisms of zebrafish thyroid development are generally comparable to those in humans, and moreover, molecular and functional studies of zebrafish thyroid follicles have demonstrated a high degree of conservation with upper vertebrates, opening up the possibility of designing alternative methods for screening individual chemicals and mixtures that impairing thyroid gland morphogenesis and/or function. Analysis of the intrafollicular thyroxine-content of zebrafish larvae exposed to potential disruptors has proved to be a reliable, physiologically relevant endpoint to estimate effects of chemicals on the mammalian thyroid gland.