Illuminating cardiac development: Advances in imaging add new dimensions to the utility of zebrafish genetics.

The use of the zebrafish as a model organism for the analysis of cardiac development is no longer proof-of-principle science. Over the last decade, the identification of a variety of zebrafish mutations and the subsequent cloning of mutated genes have revealed many critical regulators of cardiogenesis. More recently, increasingly sophisticated techniques for phenotypic characterization have facilitated analysis of the specific mechanisms by which key genes drive cardiac specification, morphogenesis, and function. Future enrichment of the arsenal of experimental strategies available for zebrafish should continue the yield of high returns from such a small source.