Zebrafish as a Model for the Study of Microvascular Complications of Diabetes and Their Mechanisms

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a crucial metabolic disease that leads to severe disorders. These include macrovascular complications such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and peripheral artery disease and microvascular complications including diabetic nephropathy, neuropathy, and retinopathy. Diabetes mellitus, along with its associated organ pathologies, is one of the key problems in today’s medicine. Zebrafish is an upcoming disease model organism in diabetes research. Its glucose metabolism and the pathways of reactive metabolite formation are very similar to those of humans. Moreover, several physiological and pathophysiological pathways that also exist in humans and other mammals have been identified in this species or are currently under intense investigation. Zebrafish offer sophisticated imaging techniques and allow simple and fast genetic and pharmacological approaches with a high throughput. In this review, we highlight achievements and mechanisms concerning microvascular complications discovered in zebrafish, and we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of zebrafish as a model for studying diabetic complications.