Program in Biology, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Department of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2024;2707:43-69. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3401-1_3.
Liver disease affects millions of people worldwide, and the high morbidity and mortality is attributed in part to the paucity of treatment options. In many cases, liver injury self-resolves due to the remarkable regenerative capacity of the liver, but in cases when regeneration cannot compensate for the injury, inflammation and fibrosis occur, creating a setting for the emergence of liver cancer. Whole animal models are crucial for deciphering the basic biological underpinnings of liver biology and pathology and, importantly, for developing and testing new treatments for liver disease before it progresses to a terminal state. The cellular components and functions of the zebrafish liver are highly similar to mammals, and zebrafish develop many diseases that are observed in humans, including toxicant-induced liver injury, fatty liver, fibrosis, and cancer. Therefore, the widespread use of zebrafish larvae for studying the mechanisms of these pathologies and for developing potential treatments necessitates the optimization of experimental approaches to assess liver disease in this model. Here, we describe protocols using staining methods, imaging, and gene expression analysis to assess liver injury, fibrosis, and preneoplastic changes in the liver of larval zebrafish.
肝脏疾病影响着全球数百万人，其高发病率和死亡率部分归因于治疗选择的匮乏。在许多情况下，由于肝脏具有出色的再生能力，肝损伤会自行恢复，但在再生无法代偿损伤的情况下，炎症和纤维化会发生，为肝癌的出现创造了条件。整体动物模型对于解析肝脏生物学和病理学的基本生物学基础至关重要，并且对于在疾病进展到终末期之前开发和测试治疗肝脏疾病的新方法也非常重要。斑马鱼肝脏的细胞成分和功能与哺乳动物高度相似，并且斑马鱼会患上许多在人类中观察到的疾病，包括毒物诱导的肝损伤、脂肪肝、纤维化和癌症。因此，广泛使用斑马鱼幼虫来研究这些疾病的发病机制并开发潜在的治疗方法，需要优化用于评估该模型中肝脏疾病的实验方法。在这里，我们描述了使用染色方法、成像和基因表达分析来评估斑马鱼幼虫肝脏损伤、纤维化和癌前病变的方案。
