Background: Laboratory of Aquaculture Nutrition and Environmental Health (LANEH) in East China Normal University (Shanghai, China) is one of the top Chinese labs focusing on fish metabolism and the related environmental health research. Currently, as similar as the global prevalence of metabolic syndromes in populations, metabolic diseases, such as fatty liver, have also widely appeared in farmed fish, and caused potential health risks for fish consumers. By using tilapia and zebrafish and using biochemical and genomic editing technologies, LANEH has developed a series of advanced fish models to investigate the functions of nutrients, endocrines, environmental factors and intestinal microbiota in the regulation of metabolism. The present talk will concentrate to show: 1) the application of fish models with mitochondrial dysfunction in studying energy homeostasis; 2) the usage of germ-free zebrafish in assessing roles of intestinal microbiota in host lipid metabolism; 3) fish models used for health risk evaluation of low doses of antibiotics on fish and human. All in together, fish could be used as an optimal model for metabolic and environmental studies from evolutional, ecological and food aspects, and also be used as a reference model for biomedical researches other than mammalian models.

Selected publications:

1. Li J.M., … and Du Z.Y Inhibited Carnitine Synthesis Causes Systemic Alteration of Nutrient Metabolism in Zebrafish., Frontiers Physiol. (2018)

1. Wang Y.M., … and Du Z.Y. The physiological and metabolic differences between visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissues in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)., Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol (2017)

3. Ning L.I., … and Du Z.Y. Nutritional background changes the hypolipidemic effects of fenofibrate in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)., Scientific Reports (2016)