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Journal Vol 48 (3)

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Amphibians as Animal Models for Laboratory Research in Physiology

Warren W. Burggren and Stephen Warburton

Warren W. Burggren, Ph.D., is Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX. Stephen Warburton, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Warren W. Burggren, Department of Biological Sciences, Biology Building Room 248, P.O. Box 305220, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203-5220, or email burggren@unt.edu.

Abstract

The concept of animal models is well honored, and amphibians have played a prominent part in the success of using key species to discover new information about all animals. As animal models, amphibians offer several advantages that include a well-understood basic physiology, a taxonomic diversity well suited to comparative studies, tolerance to temperature and oxygen variation, and a greater similarity to humans than many other currently popular animal models. Amphibians now account for ~1/4 to 1/3 of lower vertebrate and invertebrate research, and this proportion is especially true in physiological research, as evident from the high profile of amphibians as animal models in Nobel Prize research. Currently, amphibians play prominent roles in research in the physiology of musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, renal, respiratory, reproductive, and sensory systems. Amphibians are also used extensively in physiological studies aimed at generating new insights in evolutionary biology, especially in the investigation of the evolution of air breathing and terrestriality. Environmental physiology also utilizes amphibians, ranging from studies of cryoprotectants for tissue preservation to physiological reactions to hypergravity and space exploration. Amphibians are also playing a key role in studies of environmental endocrine disruptors that are having disproportionately large effects on amphibian populations and where specific species can serve as sentinel species for environmental pollution. Finally, amphibian genera such as Xenopus, a genus relatively well understood metabolically and physiologically, will continue to contribute increasingly in this new era of systems biology and "X-omics."

Key Words: amphibians; animal model; genomics; physiology; physiomics; systems biology