Abstract: Cadmium is a heavy metal with strong teratogenic and carcinogenic properties. To investigate the developmental toxicity, we exposed zebrafish embryos to 5 different concentrations of cadmium from 4 to 120 hpf (hours post fertilization) and calculated the 50% lethality concentration (LC₅₀). To determine the changes in gene expression associated with cadmium, embryos were exposed to 7.50 mg/L cadmium from 4 to 48 hpf, and whole mount in situ hybridization and quantitative PCR were performed. The results showed that cadmium caused malformation in zebrafish embryos such as small heads and eyes, spinal curvature, abnormal development of heart and death. The changes in expression of genes encoding antioxidant genes peroxiredoxin 1 (prdx1) and glutathione S-transferase pi 1.2 (gstp1.2), related with transcription and translation genes activating transcription factor 3 (atf3), jun dimerization protein 2b (jdp2b),and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4A1B (eif4a1b), stress rensponse-related genes heat shock cognate 70-kd protein, like (hsp70l), heat shock protein 90, alpha (cytosolic), class A member 1, tandem duplicate 1 (hsp90aa1.1) and fatty acid binding protein brain a (fabp7a) were observed in embryos exposed to cadmium. These effects may be related to the unusual development of the olfactory bulb, lateral line, nerve system and heart of zebrafish embryos. Our study shows that the LC₅₀ of cadmium is 15.20 mg/L. Exposure of 7.50 mg/L cadmium induces the oxidative stress, affects transcription and translation, and early neurodevelopment of zebrafish embryos, and interferes with the development of zebrafish embryos by affecting gene expression regions, which may lead to functional defects, such as smell, vision, and movement.