Toxicity is one of the major attrition causes during the drug development process. In that line, cardio-, neuro-, and hepatotoxicities are among the main reasons behind the retirement of drugs in clinical phases and post market withdrawal. Zebrafish exploitation in high-throughput drug screening is becoming an important tool to assess the toxicity and efficacy of novel drugs. This animal model has, from early developmental stages, fully functional organs from a physiological point of view. Thus, drug-induced organ-toxicity can be detected in larval stages, allowing a high predictive power on possible human drug-induced liabilities. Hence, zebrafish can bridge the gap between preclinical in vitro safety assays and rodent models in a fast and cost-effective manner. ZeGlobalTox is an innovative assay that sequentially integrates in vivo cardio-, neuro-, and hepatotoxicity assessment in the same animal, thus impacting strongly in the 3Rs principles. It Reduces, by up to a third, the number of animals required to assess toxicity in those organs. It Refines the drug toxicity evaluation through novel physiological parameters. Finally, it might allow the Replacement of classical species, such as rodents and larger mammals, thanks to its high predictivity (Specificity: 89%, Sensitivity: 68% and Accuracy: 78%).

SUMMARY: Cells perceive their microenvironment through chemical and physical cues. However, how mechanical signals are interpreted during embryonic tissue deformation resulting in specific cell behaviors is largely unexplored. The Yap/Taz family of transcriptional co-activators has emerged as an important regulator of tissue growth and regeneration, responding to physical cues from the extracellular matrix, cell shape and actomyosin cytoskeleton. In this work, we unveiled the role of Yap/Taz-TEAD activity as sensor of mechanical signals in the regulation of the progenitor behavior of boundary cells during hindbrain compartmentalization. Monitoring in vivo Yap/Taz-activity during hindbrain segmentation we discovered that boundary cells respond to mechanical cues in a cell-autonomous manner through Yap/Taz-TEAD activity. Cell-lineage analysis revealed that Yap/Taz-TEAD boundary cells decrease their proliferative activity when Yap/Taz-TEAD ceased, preceding changes of cell fate: from proliferating progenitors to differentiated neurons. Functional experiments demonstrated the pivotal role of Yap/Taz-TEAD signaling in maintaining the progenitor features in the hindbrain boundary cell population.