DNA repair capacity of zebrafish.

Damage to the genome is unavoidable in living creatures, because of sunlight exposure as well as environmental chemicals present in food and drinking water. There is a need to monitor and purify the drinking water; therefore, several methods of detection have been developed. A very promising model system for this purpose is the zebrafish (Danio rerio), which is endowed with special qualities for detecting external as well as internal abnormalities. Grossman and Wei's assay [Grossman L, Wei Q (1995) Clin Chem 12:1854-1863], which measures the expression level of a nonreplicating recombinant plasmid DNA containing a UV-damaged luciferase reporter gene, shows that zebrafish can repair chromosomal lesions to a much greater extent than the human population. This vertebrate model is still very promising after possible down-regulation of the DNA repair enzymes.