patient-derived-heterogeneous-xenograft-model-pancreatic-cancer-using

Patient-derived Heterogeneous Xenograft Model of Pancreatic Cancer Using Zebrafish Larvae as Hosts for Comparative Drug Assessment

Patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDX) and cell-derived tumor xenograft (CDX) are important techniques for preclinical assessment, medication guidance and ...

Fudan University

Csy4-based vector system enables conditional chimeric gene editing in zebrafish without interrupting embryogenesis.

There is limited understanding of the effects of major oncogenic pathways and their combinatorial actions on lipid composition and transformation during hepatic tumorigenesis. Here, we report a negative correlation of Wnt/Myc activity with steatosis in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and perform  functional studies using three conditional transgenic zebrafish models. Double-transgenic zebrafish larvae conditionally expressing human  and zebrafish  or murine  together with  in hepatocytes led to severe hepatomegaly and significantly attenuated accumulation of lipid droplets and cell senescence triggered by  expression alone. UPLC-MS-based, nontargeted lipidomic profiling and transcriptome analyses revealed that Wnt/Myc activity promotes triacylglycerol to phospholipid transformation and increases unsaturated fatty acyl groups in phospholipids in a Ras-dependent manner. Small-scale screenings suggested that supplementation of certain free fatty acids (FA) or inhibition of FA desaturation significantly represses hepatic hyperplasia of double-transgenic larvae and proliferation of three human HCC cells with and without sorafenib. Together, our studies reveal novel Ras-dependent functions of Wnt signaling in remodeling the lipid metabolism of cancerous hepatocytes in zebrafish and identify the SCD inhibitor MK8245 as a candidate drug for therapeutic intervention. These findings identify FA desaturation as a significant downstream therapeutic target for antagonizing the combinatorial effects of Wnt and Ras signaling pathways in hepatocellular carcinoma. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/78/19/5548/F1.large.jpg .

Fei Fei

Fudan University

Patient-derived Heterogeneous Xenograft Model of Pancreatic Cancer Using Zebrafish Larvae as Hosts for Comparative Drug Assessment