Santos Nuno Paula, Colaço Aura Antunes, Oliveira Paula Alexandra
1 Department of Veterinary Sciences, Veterinary and Animal Science Research Center (CECAV), University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), Vila Real, Portugal.
2 Center for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences (CITAB), University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), Vila Real, Portugal.
Tumour Biol. 2017 Mar;39(3):1010428317695923. doi: 10.1177/1010428317695923.
Cancer is the first cause of death in developed countries and the second in developing countries. Concerning the most frequent worldwide-diagnosed cancer, primary liver cancer represents approximately 4% of all new cancer cases diagnosed globally. However, among primary liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma is by far the most common histological subtype. Notwithstanding the health promotion and disease prevention campaigns, more than half a million new hepatocellular carcinoma cases are reported yearly, being estimated to growth continuously until 2020. Taking this scenario under consideration and the fact that some aspects concerning hepatocellular carcinoma evolution and metastasize process are still unknown, animal models assume a crucial role to understand this disease. The animal models have also provided the opportunity to screen new therapeutic strategies. The present review was supported on research and review papers aiming the complexity and often neglected chemically induced animal models in hepatocarcinogenesis research. Despite the ongoing debate, chemically induced animal models, namely, mice and rat, can provide unique valuable information on the biotransformation mechanisms against xenobiotics and apprehend the deleterious effects on DNA and cell proteins leading to carcinogenic development. In addition, taking under consideration that no model achieves all hepatocellular carcinoma research purposes, criteria to define the " ideal" animal model, depending on the researchers' approach, are also discussed in this review.
癌症是发达国家的首要死因，在发展中国家则位列第二。就全球诊断最为频繁的癌症而言，原发性肝癌约占全球新诊断癌症病例总数的4%。然而，在原发性肝癌中，肝细胞癌是迄今为止最常见的组织学亚型。尽管开展了健康促进和疾病预防活动，但每年仍报告有超过50万例新的肝细胞癌病例，预计到2020年将持续增长。考虑到这种情况以及肝细胞癌演变和转移过程的某些方面仍不为人知，动物模型在理解这种疾病方面发挥着关键作用。动物模型还为筛选新的治疗策略提供了机会。本综述基于旨在研究肝癌发生过程中复杂性且常被忽视的化学诱导动物模型的研究和综述论文。尽管存在持续的争论，但化学诱导动物模型，即小鼠和大鼠，能够提供关于对外源生物转化机制的独特有价值信息，并了解对DNA和细胞蛋白质导致致癌发展的有害影响。此外，考虑到没有一种模型能实现所有肝细胞癌的研究目的，本综述还讨论了根据研究人员的方法来定义“理想”动物模型的标准。
