Flavonoid compounds that are selective for a protein, a portion or a living cell, or a portion of an organism may be used as biological imaging agents. The flavonoid compounds are useful for methods of imaging organisms such as zebrafish embryos and zebra fish. Flavonoid compounds may also be used to detect protein. Advantageously, flavonoids that selectively bind protein, a portion of a living cell, or a portion of an organism may exhibit a florescence turn-on mechanism, where the flavonoids that are selectively bound exhibit a florescence response when excited.

Disclosed herein are methods of treating or inhibiting inflammation in a subject by administering an anti-inflammatory protein to the subject. In some embodiments, the protein has at least 80% sequence identity to the amino acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 1 or fragments thereof. Also disclosed are methods of identifying anti-inflammatory compounds by determining the effect of test compounds on inflammation in zebrafish gut. In some embodiments, germ-free zebrafish or zebrafish inoculated with a single defined bacterial strain are contacted with one or more test compounds and a marker of inflammation in the gut is measured and compared to a control. Recombinant vectors including a nucleic acid encoding the anti-inflammatory protein (such as a nucleic acid encoding a protein with at least 80% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO: 1 or fragments thereof) operably linked to a heterologous promoter are also disclosed.

A method for determining acute toxicity of an analyte includes the steps of: a) exposing a first fish cell culture to a first reference solution; b) incubating the first fish cell culture in step a) with a fluorescent probe; c) obtaining a first fluorescence parameter from the stained first fish cell culture; d) establishing a first linear regression relationship model between the first fluorescence parameter and viability of an animal model; and e) determining acute toxicity of the analyte by adopting the first linear regression relationship model. A system using the method for determining acute toxicity of an analyte is also addressed.

A method for extracting an analyte in a sample is described. A sample and a solution in a microwave-extraction vial are microwave-heated and agitated. A vapor produced in the vial can be extracted into a liquid-phase medium contained in a porous membrane bag situated in the vial. The liquid-phase medium containing the vapor extract may then be analyzed for an analyte with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.

This invention relates to a method of screening agents for cardiotoxicity based on the observations of the alteration of heart rate and heart rhythm, using teleost embryos and larvae. This invention also relates to a method for identification of gene(s) related to cardiac functions in teleost.

The present invention provides a test method for toxicity of raw dinotefuran drug on early life stage of fish. The method includes: preparing a standard diluent, preparing test drug liquids, selecting a test organism, toxicant exposure of the embryos, toxicant exposure of larvae, monitoring and controlling test conditions, observation in the test, and statistically analyzing data and drawing results.

The present innovation provides a tool for measuring acute and long-term stress in farmed fish, based on non-invasive sampling of material for analysis, wherein derivatives of stress hormones are quantified. The material analysed comprises a sample (e.g., feces samples, water samples from cages or tanks holding the farmed fish, and samples collected from filtration of water from cages or tanks holding the farmed fish) collected at any stage during the life cycle as well as scales, fins, blood, mucus, and bile obtained upon slaughtering. The analyte are specific corticoid metabolites and conjugates.

A method for determination of whole wastewater toxicity including: measuring the zebrafish embryo toxicity indexes of wastewater samples full-scale of a plurality of wastewater treatment plants and preprocessing obtained data, the zebrafish embryo toxicity indexes including traditional toxicity indexes and behavioral toxicity indexes; establishing whole wastewater toxicity prediction models for wastewater based on different target variables, with the traditional toxicity indexes as target variables and the behavioral toxicity indexes as features; and inputting behavioral toxicity index data of zebrafish embryos of a to-be-tested wastewater sample into the whole wastewater toxicity prediction models; selecting a corresponding prediction model based on a prediction result of the target variables, to obtain a whole wastewater toxicity of the to-be-tested wastewater sample.