Development and Production of Standardized Reference Diets for Zebrafish Research

项目摘要 第二阶段SBIR提案的总体目标是优化和实施高质量标准 斑马鱼(Danio Rerio)的参考饲料，这是一种对理解 人类健康与脊椎动物的发展。该行业的一个关键问题是高质量 标准化参考饲料，具有适当的物理特性和适当的饲料管理策略， 都不是为D.Rerio开发的。我们针对行业的解决方案，由协同协作推动 在子午线生物技术公司和阿拉巴马大学斯蒂芬·瓦茨博士的实验室之间 伯明翰，将为幼鱼、幼鱼和成年斑马鱼开发几种开放式配方饲料，这将 达到期望的控制水平，从而使用这种现代和有效的生物医学动物模型 大幅改进，更加规范。这种商业和学术的合作是一个重要的价值 加入到这个应用科学项目中。这一配方饮食的关键成分将包括蛋白质包装， 包含确定和有效的来源，包括基于微生物的单细胞蛋白(SCP)，富含 从细菌生物量中获得的蛋白质来源。含有这些蛋白质来源的饮食已经由 子午线生物技术，其中几个显著改进了对虾和鱼类养殖饲料技术；因此， 我们希望将这项技术应用于D rerio，并有可能应用于其他相关的动物模型。我们共同的第二阶段 在该计划的两年中，有许多里程碑和具体的实验目标。具体目标为 里程碑1(第一年的工作)包括优化我们最有希望的 并将其与试验第一阶段工作中使用的现有SCP强化饮食进行测试，比较最好的 目前在美国生物医学研究企业的学术核心中使用的竞争对手的饮食， 并在表型和基因水平上深刻地描述了我们饮食的好处。里程碑1将寻求 识别和改进最佳饮食，并推动其市场渗透，最初是在学术界。具体目标为 里程碑2(第二年的工作)包括进一步优化氨基酸、脂肪酸、中性脂肪和能量 SCP配料和扩大制造规模，以满足Merdian新的美国工厂的需求，共享 最好的饮食配方，以学术斑马鱼为核心，推动饮食的采用，并集中数据 从众多学术核心中收集，供All和NIH Orip使用。里程碑2将寻求渗透到 学术斑马鱼养殖市场获得核心采用。与协作努力并行不悖 在学术市场内，子午线和商业合作伙伴在这两年也将寻求 里程碑3-寻求扩大技术并渗透到渔业水产养殖和养殖业 市场，其他生产物种，并潜在地开发人类应用程序。

Project Summary The over-arching goal of this Phase II SBIR proposal is to optimize and implement high quality standard reference diets for the Zebrafish (Danio rerio), an animal model of critical importance to the understanding of human health and development of vertebrate organisms. A key problem in the industry is that high quality standardized reference diets, with appropriate physical properties and adequate feed management strategies, have not been developed for D. rerio. Our solution for the industry, driven by a synergistic collaboration between Meridian Biotech and the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Watts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is to develop several open formulation diets for larval, juvenile and adult Zebrafish, which will achieve a desired level of control and whereby use of this modern and effective biomedical animal model is substantially improved and more standardized. This commercial-academic collaboration is a significant value add to this applied science program. Key ingredients in this formulated diet will include protein packages that contain defined and effective sources, including a microbial based Single Cell Protein (SCP), an enriched protein source obtained from bacterial biomass. Diets with these protein sources have been developed by Meridian Biotech, several of which have improved shrimp and fish farming feed technologies markedly; thus, we wish to apply this technology to D. rerio and, potentially, other relevant animal models. Our mutual Phase II Milestones and Specific Experimental Aims are many across both years of the program. Specific Aims for Milestone 1 (Year 1 work) include optimizing the protein content and amino acid profile of our most promising ingredient and testing it against the existing SCP-fortified diet used in pilot Phase I work, comparing the best diet to the competitor diets currently used in academic cores across the US biomedical research enterprise, and characterizing deeply at the phenotypic and genetic levels the benefits of our diet. Milestone 1 will seek to identify and progress the best diet and drive its market penetration, initially in academia. Specific Aims for Milestone 2 (Year 2 work) include further optimizing the amino acid, fatty acid, neutral fat, and energy of the SCP ingredient and scaling up manufacturing to meet demands at Meridian’s new US-based facilities, sharing the best diet formulation with academic Zebrafish cores to drive adoption of the diet, and centralizing the data gathering from the many academic cores for use by all and the NIH ORIP. Milestone 2 will seek to penetrate the academic Zebrafish husbandry marketplace by gaining Core adoption. In parallel with collaborative efforts within the academic marketplace, Meridian and commercial partners across both years will also pursue a Milestone 3 which seeks to expand the technologies and penetrate the industry fish aquaculture and farming marketplace, other production species, and potentially develop human applications.