Table 2.
C. elegans | Cell Cultures | Yeasts | Drosophila melanogaster | Zebra Fish (Danio rerio) | Murine Models | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Handling and maintenance | Easy | Easy | Easy | Fair | Fair | Difficult |
Consideration of bioavailability issues | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Throughput | High | High | High | Moderate | Good | Low |
Availability of disease models | Good | Good | Limited | Good | Limited | High |
Human prediction capacity | Moderate | Poor | Poor | Poor | Moderate | Good |
Ease for genetic manipulation | Good | Good | Good | Good | Limited | Poor |
Ethical concerns | No | May exist | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Drawbacks | Biologically far from mammals Primitive immune system |
Not a physiological setting | Biologically far from mammals Low degree of homology with human genes |
Difficult to scale and handling system (it flies) | Difficult testing of non-soluble molecules | Facilities and breeding requirements |