Whole-organism screening for modulators of fasting metabolism using transgenic zebrafish.

Organismal energy homeostasis is maintained by complex interorgan communications making the discovery of novel drugs against metabolic diseases challenging using traditional high-throughput approaches in vitro. Here, we describe a method that rapidly identifies small molecules with an impact on organismal energy balance in vivo. Specifically, we developed a whole-organism screen for modulators of fasting metabolism using transgenic bioluminescence-reporter zebrafish for the gluconeogenic gene phosphoenolpyruvate-carboxykinase 1 (pck1).