title: Using zebrafish models of leukemia to streamline drug screening and discovery.
abstract: Current treatment strategies for acute leukemias largely rely on nonspecific cytotoxic drugs that result in high therapy-related morbidity and mortality. Cost-effective, pertinent animal models are needed to link in vitro studies with the development of new therapeutic agents in clinical trials on a high-throughput scale. However, targeted therapies have had limited success moving from bench to clinic, often due to unexpected off-target effects. The zebrafish has emerged as a reliable in vivo tool for modeling human leukemia. Zebrafish genetic and xenograft models of acute leukemia provide an unprecedented opportunity to conduct rapid, phenotype-based screens. This allows for the identification of relevant therapies while simultaneously evaluating drug toxicity, thus circumventing the limitations of target-centric approaches.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Adam P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Deveau
authors.affiliation: Undergraduate Medical Program, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Victoria L
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Bentley
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; Departments of Microbiology and Immunology and Pathology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Electronic address: jason.berman@iwk.nshealth.ca.
authors.forename: Jason N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Berman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D055808:Drug Discovery; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D057166:High-Throughput Screening Assays; D006801:Humans; D007938:Leukemia / Q000188:drug therapy; D010641:Phenotype; D023041:Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays; D015027:Zebrafish
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents