Zebrafish produce sunscreen to protect their embryos from UV light


A zebrafish

Feminine zebrafish top off their eggs with a provide of a compound that acts as a sunscreen

Grigorev Mikhail/Shutterstock

Zebrafish eggs comprise a sunscreen known as gadusol that protects the rising embryo from dangerous rays.

The ultraviolet rays in daylight are damaging. To defend in opposition to this, vertebrates produce a pigment known as melanin. In aquatic vertebrates, like fish, melanin is produced by cells known as melanophores. However melanophores seem late in embryonic improvement, so it wasn’t recognized what protects weak fish embryos earlier than this level.

To analyze, James Gagnon on the College of Utah …