title: From fish bowl to bedside: The power of zebrafish to unravel melanoma pathogenesis and discover new therapeutics.
abstract: Melanoma is the most aggressive and deadliest form of skin cancer. A detailed knowledge of the cellular, molecular, and genetic events underlying melanoma progression is highly relevant to diagnosis, prognosis and risk stratification, and the development of new therapies. In the last decade, zebrafish have emerged as a valuable model system for the study of melanoma. Pathway conservation, coupled with the availability of robust genetic, transgenic, and chemical tools, has made the zebrafish a powerful model for identifying novel disease genes, visualizing cancer initiation, interrogating tumor-microenvironment interactions, and discovering new therapeutics that regulate melanocyte and melanoma development. In this review, we will give an overview of these studies, and highlight recent advancements that will help unravel melanoma pathogenesis and impact human disease.
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell Program and Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-5773-6965
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Rooijen
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell Program and Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.|PhD program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fazio
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell Program and Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Leonard I
authors.initials: LI
authors.lastname: Zon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D063646:Carcinogenesis / Q000473:pathology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D008544:Melanocytes / Q000473:pathology; D008545:Melanoma / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: chemical genetic screen; melanoma initiation; metastasis; personalized medicine; zebrafish melanoma model