Zebrafish Mutation Project

The Zebrafish Mutation Project (ZMP) aims to create a knockout allele in every protein­-coding gene in the zebrafish genome, using a combination of ENU mutagenesis, whole exome enrichment and Illumina sequencing, in addition to a targeted CRISPR/Cas9 approach.

With knockout alleles in more than 60% of protein-coding genes, this project is uniquely capable of annotating gene function to thousands of vertebrate genes of which we currently know very little.

Morphological Phenotyping

As a first pass analysis to annotate gene function to the ZMP allele collection, a high throughput phenotyping pipeline has been established to evaluate developmental morphology in the first 5 days of development. With its rapid and translucent development, by day 5 a zebrafish embryo has developed the majority of vertebrate structures and organs; eyes, brain, heart, liver, kidney, pancreas, blood cells, etc… Morphological features of the developing larvae are assessed and changes in their features are linked back to identified mutations.

Worldwide Collaboration

An important aspect of the ZMP is to make our vast collection of alleles available to researchers across the entire world. This is achieved through our partners, the Zebrafish International Resource Center (ZIRC) and the European Zebrafish Resource Center (EZRC), who provide distribution services for the zebrafish community.