Table 1.

Comparative advantages of using zebrafish and mice to model drug-induced liver injury

Advantages of zebrafish	Advantages of mice
Optically large and transparent embryos	Characterized inbred strains, including knock-out and knock-in strains
Ex utero development	Complement of all mammalian organs and physiological similarity to humans
Similar cellular and subcellular processes to humans	Easier to draw blood from mice than fish
Rapid development of liver ∼72–96 hours postfertilization	Feasible to perform pharmacokinetic/toxicokinetic studies
High fecundity (∼200 eggs per female per week)	Genome duplication of fish results in multiple copies of genes
Large numbers of fish can be maintained easily
Embryonic fish can survive up to 7 days without a cardiovascular system
Low overall cost
Easy drug delivery by dissolving in the tank water, with possibility of drug delivery by microinjection
Feasibility of high-throughput screens
High n numbers available per study, allowing improved statistical analysis
Lower-order mammal (in line with ‘3Rs’ principles)