Zebrafish: A Versatile Animal Model to Study Tumorigenesis Process and Effective Preclinical Drug Screening for Human Cancer Research

Abstract

Animal model systems are very important for preclinical evaluation of drugs and also to understand underlined pathophysiology and cellular cross talks associated with different disease conditions. Rodent animal model system has been of immense scientific interest but has its own concerns in terms of management and handling. Cancer research has seen a huge rise in the number of discoveries of preclinical candidates due to the increase in global burden of this disease. Hence, there is a need to expedite the screening of these candidate molecules such that clinical trials can happen, and the drugs can be available for treatment to patients. In this direction, zebrafish has caught attention of the entire scientific community owing to its similar genetic profile and tumor induction capability. Additionally, they have been easy to manage and experiment within the existing lab set ups. Not only are the adult fishes important model systems for cancer study but also are the unique properties of its embryo that make it one of the promising methods to study tumor cell biology and also evaluate drug candidates like several phytochemicals. This chapter reviews the different approaches that have been used recently for cancer research and phytochemical screening using zebrafish adult, juvenile, and embryos as model systems.