ConclusionsConclusions Despite the complexity Despite the complexity of causal models, measures can be of causal models, measures can be developed that will help improve clinicians' developed that will help improve clinicians' communication with patients and communication with patients and understanding of help-seeking understanding of help-seeking behaviours. behaviours.
As a promising in vivo tool for cancer research, zebrafish have been widely applied in various tumor studies. The zebrafish xenograft model is a low-cost, high-throughput tool for cancer research that can be established quickly and requires only a small sample size, which makes it favorite among researchers. Zebrafish patient-derived xenograft (zPDX) models provide promising evidence for short-term clinical treatment. In this review, we discuss the characteristics and advantages of zebrafish, such as their transparent and translucent features, the use of vascular fluorescence imaging, the establishment of metastatic and intracranial orthotopic models, individual pharmacokinetics measurements, and tumor microenvironment. Furthermore, we introduce how these characteristics and advantages are applied other in tumor studies. Finally, we discuss the future direction of the use of zebrafish in tumor studies and provide new ideas for the application of it.
Patient‐derived xenograft (PDX) models are widely used as preclinical cancer models and are considered better than cell culture models in recapitulating the histological features, molecular characteristics and intratumoral heterogeneity (ITH) of human tumors. While the PDX model is commonly accepted for use in drug discovery and other translational studies, a growing body of evidence has suggested its limitations. Recently, the fidelity of cancer cells within a PDX has been questioned, which may impede the future application of these models. In this review, we will focus the variable phenotypes of xenograft tumors and the genomic instability and molecular inconsistency of PDX tumors after serial transplantation. Next, we will discuss the underlying mechanism of ITH and its clinical relevance. Stochastic selection bias in the sampling process and/or deterministic clonal dynamics due to murine selective pressure may have detrimental effects on the results of personalized medicine and drug screening studies. In addition, we aim to identify a possible solution for the issue of fidelity in current PDX models and to discuss emerging next‐generation preclinical models.
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