An Intraperitoneal Injection Technique in Adult Zebrafish that Minimizes Body Damage and Associated Mortality

The adult zebrafish (Danio rerio), which is genetically accessible, is being employed as a valuable vertebrate model to study human disorders such as cardiomyopathy. Intraperitoneal (IP) injection is an important method that delivers compounds to the body for either testing therapeutic effects or generating disease models such as doxorubicin-induced cardiomyopathy (DIC). Currently, there are two methods of IP injection. Both methods have limitations when handling toxic compounds such as doxorubicin, which result in side effects manifesting as severe damage to the body shape and fish death. While these shortcomings could be overcome by extensive investigator training, a new IP injection method that has minimal side effects is desirable. Here, a unique IP injection method that is able to handle toxic compounds is reported. Consistently reduced cardiac function can result without incurring significant fish death. The technique can be easily mastered by researchers who have minimal experience with adult zebrafish.