Zebrafish larvae could guide cancer therapies
Researchers in Canada were able to mimic children’s response to cancer therapies in zebrafish larvae, which could provide a platform to inform clinical decisions in real-time.
The ability to identify specific genes contributing to a patient’s cancer has revolutionised cancer treatment, but 30% of aggressive cancers in children do not have specific genetic alterations, making it difficult to select an appropriate therapy. In these cases, an alternative is to transfer cells from the tumour of each patient into a mouse to study how the tumour would respond to different therapies. However, this process is long and in certain cases the tissue does not form tumours in mice.
Researchers at the CHEO Research Institute have tested a similar approach using zebrafish. The team injected tumour cells from ten patients being treated for different cancers into fish larvae and treated the water with different therapies to analyse how the tumours responded to therapies. Then, the researchers compared the effect of the drugs on the size of the tumours both with the clinical outcomes and the effects of the drugs in mice with tumours from the same patients. The zebrafish platform accurately predicted the responses to 11 of 12 treatments and the researchers could grow tumours from all patients, whereas in mice the process failed in three cases.
Jason Berman, leader of the study published in Cancer Research Communications, said: "Our research shows that these small tropical fish provide fast, accurate information about how a child may respond to different therapies, saving time and guiding personalized treatment decisions that have a higher likelihood of working for each child."
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