ReviewThe scales and tales of myelination: using zebrafish and mouse to study myelinating glia

- Myelin is an evolutionary innovation of the jawed-vertebrate lineage.
- Many studies of myelin use mouse, but zebrafish are also a powerful model organism.
- This review compares myelinating glial cell biology during development and regeneration in zebrafish and mouse.

Myelin, the lipid-rich sheath that insulates axons to facilitate rapid conduction of action potentials, is an evolutionary innovation of the jawed-vertebrate lineage. Research efforts aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms governing myelination have primarily focused on rodent models; however, with the advent of the zebrafish model system in the late twentieth century, the use of this genetically tractable, yet simpler vertebrate for studying myelination has steadily increased. In this review, we compare myelinating glial cell biology during development and regeneration in zebrafish and mouse and enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of using each model to study myelination.This article is part of a Special Issue entitled SI: Myelin Evolution.