Research history of various model animals
Model animals play an important role in the field of animal medicine due to their simple structure, short life cycle, simple cultivation and small genome. As a model, model animals can not only answer the most basic zoological questions in life science research, but also have reference significance in the treatment of certain human diseases. Common model animals include fungal yeast, prokaryotic Escherichia coli, lower invertebrate nematodes, insect fruit flies, fish zebrafish, mammalian mice and plant mimics.
1 Research history of model animals
In the early life science research, people always use some common animals as materials, but the animals used are the purpose of research and the model does not have the concept of animals. With the development of science, more and more knowledge about life is created, but there is an urgent need to organize this awkward knowledge systematically to fully understand the overall process of life. However, at the same time, people's energy is limited, it is impossible to study all animals uniformly, and the representative animals that are the driving force for the emergence of model animals are selected for research. At the same time, in the medical field, due to ethical issues, it is impossible to use humans as experimental materials, and reliable substitutes must be found. This is also the driving force for the emergence of model animals.
1.1 Research history of Caenorhabditis elegans
Caenorhabditiselegans (Caenorhabditiselegans) plays a vital role in today's life science research. After establishing the core principles of molecular genetics in the 1960s, Brenner finally chose Caenorhabditis elegans (a simpler animal than fruit flies) to explore the genetic mechanisms of individual and neurodevelopment. He also published an article on genetics in 1974. In this article, C. We have elaborated on the selection of nematode mutants, gene mapping and other genetic manipulation methods (Brenner S.1974). It laid the foundation for the genetic research on the ontogeny of nematodes as a model animal.
1.2 Drosophila research history
Drosophila belongs to Diptera. At the beginning of the 20th century, Morgan chose Drosophila as the research object, established the theory of genetic chromosome, and laid the foundation for classical genetics. It is the foundation and pioneering application of Drosophila as a model animal. Since the 1980s, fruit fly genome manipulation has made great strides in developing a series of effective technologies. Drosophila whole genome sequencing was basically completed in 2000, and the total genome is about 165 Mb (WanYQ, 2006).
1.3 Zebrafish Research Progress Zebrafish (Daniorerio) is a bony fish belonging to the genus Brachydanus that belongs to the subclass Cyprinidae. In the 1970s, American geneticist George Straysinger realized the advantages of zebrafish and began to study zebrafish reproduction methods and embryo development, and developed several related genetic techniques. He then published a paper on zebrafish in vitro fertilization and natural haploid induction (Streisinger G, 1981). In the early 1990s, a research team composed of German developmental zoologist Christineuslein Wohlhardt and Dr. Wolfgang Driver of Harvard University in the United States began to conduct simultaneous large-scale chemical mutagenesis studies on zebrafish (DrieverW (1996)).
1.4 Mouse Research History
Mouse belongs to the Nurture category of rodents, and Musmusculus is now widely used in animal medicine research. In 1902, under the influence of Mendelian genetics research, Harvard University Castle conducted a genetic study of mice and systematically analyzed the inheritance and genetic variation of mice. In 1982, transgenic mice with foreign genes were first reported. One year after the cloned sheep Dolly Sheep was born, the cloned mouse was born in Hawaii. In 2002, the complete sequencing of the mouse genome was completed. Since 2005, large-scale gene deletion studies have started in the United States, the European Union and Canada (LinZY, 2006).