. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 May 28.

Published in final edited form as: Drug Discov Today Dis Models. 2018 May 28;24:55–62. doi: 10.1016/j.ddmod.2018.04.001

Table 1.

Comparison among the small animal models for heart valve research

	ZEBRAFISH	CHICKEN	MOUSE
DEVELOPMENT	External AV valve starts to form by 105 hpf	In ovo AV valve tissue initiates at HH Stage 13. OFT valve cushions form at HH stage 16	In utero AV Valve primordia starts to form around 9.5 dpc. OFT cushions from around 10 dpc.
CHAMBER FORMATION	2 chambers (single atrium and ventricle)	4 chambers	4 chambers
VALVE FORMATION	AV valve	Aortic valve, pulmonary valve, mitral valve, tricuspid valve	Aortic valve, pulmonary valve, mitral valve, tricuspid valve
GENETIC MANIPULATION	Excellent for forward genetics. Rapid improvement in reverse genetics.	Rapid improvement in genetic editing with new CRISPR/Cas9 method	Strong in both forward and reverse genetics, including lineage tracing.
IN VIVO IMAGING	Strong: high-speed confocal microscopy & light sheet microscopy	Strong: Optical coherence tomography, confocal microscopy & optical microscopy	Less advantageous due to access (methodologies in progress)
SURGICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL MANIPULATION	Easy access for laser-targeted ablation and pharmacological interventions	Easy access for surgical, pharmacological manipulation and laser ablation	Less advantageous