Tanwar Pranay, Bhattacharya Debashruti, Dasari Abhilash, Bijwe Manthan, Rana Rashmi, Gupta Ishaan, Minocha Shilpi
Laboratory Oncology Unit, Dr BRA-IRCH, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), Hauz Khas, New Delhi, India.
Int J Surg. 2024 Dec 1;110(12):7585-7589. doi: 10.1097/JS9.0000000000002135.
Gallbladder cancer (GBC) is one of the common biliary tract malignancies that is often associated with late presentation of clinical symptoms resulting in poor prognosis, thereby considerably increasing the mortality rate. Geographic and ethnic variations are one of the major causes of GBC incidence. However, in addition to genetic susceptibility to GBC, other factors like age, obesity, sex, and exposure to certain heavy chemicals may also lead to the incidence of GBC. Most of GBC research has so far used traditional cell culture systems. Recently, newer approaches using 2D and 3D cultures, xenograft models, and organoids are also becoming popular. However, whole organism model systems for GBC research have not yet been established. In this study, the authors propose the use of zebrafish as a model organism to study GBC. However, the zebrafish gallbladder is relatively unexplored besides the anatomical features. Here, the authors unravel and then compare the unique transcriptomic profile of zebrafish gallbladder with humans to identify genes consistently expressed in both species. The authors provide a comprehensive list of all gallbladder specific genes in zebrafish that also have their orthologous counterparts in humans. Therefore, they can be used as potential biomarkers for gallbladder transcriptomic profile. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only study so far to provide a complete genomic expression profile of zebrafish gallbladder along with an exhaustive cross-species comparison, thus paving the path for using zebrafish as a model organism to study GBC and help identify novel biomarkers for its early detection and diagnosis.
胆囊癌（GBC）是常见的胆道恶性肿瘤之一，常与临床症状出现较晚相关，导致预后不良，从而显著增加死亡率。地理和种族差异是胆囊癌发病率的主要原因之一。然而，除了对胆囊癌的遗传易感性外，年龄、肥胖、性别以及接触某些重金属等其他因素也可能导致胆囊癌的发生。迄今为止，大多数胆囊癌研究都使用传统的细胞培养系统。最近，使用二维和三维培养、异种移植模型和类器官的新方法也越来越受欢迎。然而，用于胆囊癌研究的全生物体模型系统尚未建立。在本研究中，作者提出使用斑马鱼作为模型生物来研究胆囊癌。然而，除了解剖特征外，斑马鱼胆囊相对未被充分探索。在这里，作者揭示并比较了斑马鱼胆囊与人类独特的转录组图谱，以确定在两个物种中均持续表达的基因。作者提供了斑马鱼中所有胆囊特异性基因的综合列表，这些基因在人类中也有直系同源对应物。因此，它们可作为胆囊转录组图谱的潜在生物标志物。据我们所知，这是迄今为止唯一一项提供斑马鱼胆囊完整基因组表达谱以及详尽跨物种比较的研究，从而为使用斑马鱼作为模型生物来研究胆囊癌以及帮助识别其早期检测和诊断的新型生物标志物铺平了道路。
