Differential roles of diet on development and spinal cord regeneration in larval zebrafish

Abstract The zebrafish is a powerful model organism for studying development and regeneration. However, there is a lack of a standardized reference diet. Most studies evaluate the rate of growth, survival and fecundity. In this study, we compare three diets and their effects on growth and regeneration after a spinal cord injury (SCI). Fish were fed daily for one week with daily measurements of overall length and width of spinal injury. Significant different in length after the trial were observed between live feed and commercial feeds. Similarly, differences in rate of regeneration were observed. Our data highlights the need for establishing a standardized diet for regeneration studies to improve research reproducibility.