Establishment of Zebrafish Models for Diabetes Mellitus and Its Microvascular Complications

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic metabolic disease known to cause several microvascular complications, including diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy, and diabetic neuropathy. Hyperglycemia plays a key role in inducing diabetic microvascular complications. A cohort of diabetic animal models has been established to study diabetes-related vascular diseases. However, the zebrafish model offers unique advantages in this field. The tiny size and huge offspring numbers of zebrafish make it amenable to perform large-scale analysis or screening. The easily accessible strategies for gene manipulation with morpholino or CRISPR/Cas9 and chemical/drug treatment through microinjection or skin absorption allow establishing the zebrafish DM models by a variety of means. In addition, the transparency of zebrafish embryos makes it accessible to perform in vivo high-resolution imaging of the vascular system. In this review, we focus on the strategies to establish diabetic or hyperglycemic models with zebrafish and the achievements and disadvantages of using zebrafish as a model to study diabetic microvascular complications.