This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 25860294 and 25590073. We would like to thank Ms. Yui Namie for the hand-drawn illustration, and Mr. Koshi Kataoka and Ms. Sayuri Ichikawa for assistance with the zebrafish maintenance.

All animal procedures were approved by the Ethics Committee of Mie University, and were performed according to Japanese animal welfare regulation &#8216;Act on Welfare and Management of Animals&#8217; (Ministry of Environment of Japan) and complied with international guidelines.
1. Preparation of the Needle &#160;
NOTE: All experiments were performed under anesthesia, and all efforts were made to minimize suffering. For euthanasia, fish were immersed in an ice&#8211;w...

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We present here a detailed protocol for serially obtaining blood from adult zebrafish. This method is straightforward to carry out and we use it in lab on a daily basis. This blood collection method is based on inserting a glass capillary needle into the zebrafish&#8217;s dorsal aorta. During this procedure, it is critical to be careful to not ablate the spine because it is the criterion for searching for the dorsal aorta. Reducing the spine injury will improve the survival rate. Although this technique is simple and eas...

Zebrafish are gaining increasing popularity as a valuable model of human diseases because their organs and genetics are similar to those of humans1,2. In the field of developmental biology, many studies have demonstrated that zebrafish and human show marked similarity in hematopoiesis3, hemostasis4,5, and myelopoiesis6. Adult zebrafish are also used for studying immunological7, neurodegenerative8 and obesity-related diseases9 because this model organism shares common pathways with those disrupted in human diseases. For obesity and obesity-related diseases (diabetes, hepatic steatosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and atherosclerosis), zebrafish blood glucose and lipids levels have been thoroughly investigated in several transgenic and diet-induced obesity models10-13.
Repeated blood sampling from individual animals will reduce animal use and decrease interindividual differences. However, repeated sample collection is technically difficult in small animals such as zebrafish because of their relatively small blood volume and the lack of easily accessible vessels. Several methods for one-time blood collection from zebrafish have been developed, although these methods have their own drawbacks, including lethality, associated tissue damage and limited blood volume. For example, 1&#8211;5 &#181;l blood can be harvested from a lateral incision of approximately 0.3 cm in length in the region of the dorsal aorta5. Decapitation with scissors by cutting through the pectoral girdle can collect 5&#8211;10 &#181;l blood10. Another convenient blood sampling method is tail ablation14. Cardiac puncture is one potential alternative method for repeated blood collection from the same fish, but the very small amount obtained (approximately 50 nl) with this procedure limits the number of analyses that can be performed11. Accordingly, a new protocol is needed to enable repeated non-lethal blood sampling, which would be a critical advance necessary for this organism to be a standard model organism for human diseases. This technique would allow for testing pharmacological response, discovery of molecular biomarkers for diagnosis, determination of prognosis, and the monitoring of various diseases, such as metabolic diseases, degenerative diseases and several types of malignancies.
We therefore developed a minimally invasive method for obtaining blood from zebrafish serially15. Here we demonstrate the procedure visually and provide a detailed protocol for this technique. Using this method, the normal value based on various parameters, including hemoglobin, fasting blood glucose, and lipids in the blood of healthy adult zebrafish were evaluated. Additionally, we also evaluated whether this method is suitable for studies that require serial samples by monitoring the temporal changes in blood glucose levels during overfeeding experiments.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>Glass capillaries with filament</td>
			<td>Narishige</td>
			<td>GD-1</td>
			<td>1.0-mm-outer-diameter.</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Needle puller</td>
			<td>Narishige</td>
			<td>PC-10</td>
			<td>To produce the needls</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Heparin</td>
			<td>Wako Pure Chemical Industries</td>
			<td>081-00136</td>
			<td>For heparinization</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Aspirator tube assembly</td>
			<td>Drummond</td>
			<td>2-040-000</td>
			<td>For blood collection</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Bulb dispenser</td>
			<td>Drummond</td>
			<td>1-000-9000</td>
			<td>For blood collection</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>2-phenoxyethanol</td>
			<td>Wako Pure Chemical Industries</td>
			<td>163-12075</td>
			<td>For anesthetizing the fish</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>DRI-CHEM3500V</td>
			<td>Fujifilm</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>For hemoglobin measurement</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>DRI-CHEM Slides</td>
			<td>Fujifilm</td>
			<td>Hb-WII</td>
			<td>For hemoglobin measurement</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Glutest Neo Super</td>
			<td>Sanwa Kagaku Kenkyusho</td>
			<td>-</td>
			<td>For bood glucose measurement</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Wako L-type TG kit</td>
			<td>Wako Pure Chemical Industries</td>
			<td>464-44201</td>
			<td>For TG measurement</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Wako L-type CHO kit</td>
			<td>Wako Pure Chemical Industries</td>
			<td>460-44301</td>
			<td>For total cholesterol measurement</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Parafilm M</td>
			<td>Alcan Packaging</td>
			<td>PM996</td>
			<td>To expel the blood on</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

repeated blood collection for blood tests in adult zebrafish

Repeated blood collection is one of the most common techniques performed on laboratory animals. However, a non-lethal protocol for blood collection from zebrafish has not been established. The previous methods for blood collection from zebrafish are lethal, such as lateral incision, decapitation and tail ablation. Thus we have developed a novel &#8220;repeated&#8221; blood collection method, and present here a detailed protocol outlining this procedure. This method is minimally invasive and results in a very low mortality rate (2.3%) for zebrafish, thus enabling repeated blood sampling from the same individual. The maximum volume of blood sampling is dependent on body weight of the fish. The volume for repeated blood sampling at intervals should be&#160;&#8804;0.4% of body weight every week or &#8804;1% every 2 weeks, which were evaluated by measurements of blood hemoglobin. Additionally, hemoglobin, fasting blood glucose, plasma triacylglycerol (TG) and total cholesterol levels in male and female adult zebrafish were measured. We also applied this method to investigate the dysregulation of glucose metabolism in diet-induced obesity. This blood collection method will allow many applications, including glucose and lipid metabolism and hematological studies, which will increase the use of zebrafish as a human disease model organism.

This blood collection method causes minimal injury to zebrafish (a &#60;1 mm puncture; Figure 1J) and yields a very low mortality rate of 2.3%. We examined the maximum volume of blood that could be collected from a single fish and evaluated the relationship to its body weight (Figure 3). We found that the maximum blood volume collected was linearly correlated with body weight (R = 0.813). The largest volume of blood collected from an individual fish (body weight = 1.071 g) was 25 &#181;l...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Repeated Blood Collection for Blood Tests in Adult Zebrafish at JoVE.com

Repeated Blood Collection for Blood Tests in Adult Zebrafish

Repeated blood sampling is necessary and important in animal research. We developed a novel, non-lethal and reliable method for repeated blood collection from adult zebrafish, and applied this method to the study of blood biochemistry, including glucose metabolism.

Repeated blood collection is one of the most common techniques performed on laboratory animals. However, a non-lethal protocol for blood collection from ...

repeated-blood-collection-for-blood-tests-in-adult-zebrafish

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34.3K Views.  Mie University. Repeated blood sampling is necessary and important in animal research. We developed a novel, non-lethal and reliable method for repeated blood collection from adult zebrafish, and applied this method to the study of blood biochemistry, including glucose metabolism.