Amatruda James F, Patton E Elizabeth
Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75390, USA.
Int Rev Cell Mol Biol. 2008;271:1-34. doi: 10.1016/S1937-6448(08)01201-X.
Firmly established as a model system for development, the zebrafish is now emerging as an effective system for the study of the fundamental aspects of tumorigenesis. In keeping with the striking anatomical and physiological similarity between fish and mammals, zebrafish develop a wide spectrum of cancers resembling human malignancies. The potential for zebrafish as a cancer model derives from its strengths as an experimental system for developmental biology. Despite 450 million years of evolutionary distance, the pathways that govern vertebrate development including signaling, proliferation, cell movements, differentiation, and apoptosis-indeed, the same pathways that are often misregulated in tumorigenesis-are highly conserved between humans and zebrafish. This, together with a complete genome sequence and an array of tools for gene manipulation, makes the construction of robust, physiological zebrafish cancer models increasingly possible.
斑马鱼已牢固确立为发育的模型系统，现在正成为研究肿瘤发生基本方面的有效系统。与鱼类和哺乳动物之间惊人的解剖学和生理学相似性相一致，斑马鱼会发生各种各样类似于人类恶性肿瘤的癌症。斑马鱼作为癌症模型的潜力源于其作为发育生物学实验系统的优势。尽管在进化上相隔4.5亿年，但控制脊椎动物发育的途径，包括信号传导、增殖、细胞运动、分化和凋亡——实际上，这些在肿瘤发生中经常失调的相同途径在人类和斑马鱼之间高度保守。这一点，再加上完整的基因组序列和一系列基因操作工具，使得构建强大的、生理学意义上的斑马鱼癌症模型越来越成为可能。
