Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2020; 26(21): 2792-2809
Published online Jun 7, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i21.2792
Use of zebrafish embryos as avatar of patients with pancreatic cancer: A new xenotransplantation model towards personalized medicine
Gregorio Di Franco, Alice Usai, Niccola Funel, Matteo Palmeri, Ida Elena Rosamaria Montesanti, Matteo Bianchini, Desirée Gianardi, Niccolò Furbetta, Simone Guadagni, Enrico Vasile, Alfredo Falcone, Luca Emanuele Pollina, Vittoria Raffa, Luca Morelli
Gregorio Di Franco, Matteo Palmeri, Matteo Bianchini, Desirée Gianardi, Niccolò Furbetta, Simone Guadagni, Luca Morelli, General Surgery Unit, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, Pisa 56124, Italy
Alice Usai, Ida Elena Rosamaria Montesanti, Vittoria Raffa, Department of Biology, University of Pisa, Pisa 56127, Italy
Niccola Funel, Luca Emanuele Pollina, Division of Surgical Pathology, Department of Laboratory of Medicine, Hospital-University of Pisa, Pisa 56124, Italy
Enrico Vasile, Division of Medical Oncology, Pisa University Hospital, Pisa 56124, Italy
Alfredo Falcone, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, Pisa 56124, Italy
Luca Morelli, EndoCAS (Center for Computer Assisted Surgery), University of Pisa, Pisa 56124, Italy
Author contributions: Di Franco G and Usai A contributed equally to this work; Raffa V and Morelli L contributed equally to this work; Di Franco G, Usai A, Funel N, Palmeri M, Bianchini M, Gianardi D, Furbetta N, Guadagni S, Vasile E, Falcone A, Pollina LE, Raffa V and Morelli L contributed to the study conception and design; Di Franco G, Usai A, Funel N, Palmeri M, Montesanti IER, Bianchini M, Gianardi D, Furbetta N, Guadagni S, Pollina LE and Enrico Vasile E contributed to the data acquisition; Di Franco G, Usai A, Funel N, Palmeri M, Montesanti IER, Bianchini M, Gianardi D, Furbetta N, Guadagni S, Raffa V and Morelli L contributed to the data analysis and interpretation; Di Franco G, Usai A, Funel N, Palmeri M, Montesanti IER, Bianchini M, Gianardi D, Furbetta N, Guadagni S and Vasile E drafted the manuscript; Falcone A, Pollina LE, Raffa V and Morelli L contributed to the critical revision; all authors made the study final approval.
Supported by the Fondazione Pisa, No. 114/16.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by Ethics committee of “Area Vasta Nord Ovest (CEAVNO)” (protocol number 70213).
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: Zebrafish (Danio Rerio) were handled in compliance with local animal welfare regulations (authorization n. 99/2012-A, 19.04.2012) and standard protocols approved by Italian Ministry of Public Health, in conformity with the Directive 2010/63/EU.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Luca Morelli, FACS, MD, Associate Professor, Surgeon, General Surgery Unit, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, Via Paradisa 2, Pisa 56124, Italy. luca.morelli@unipi.it
Received: December 31, 2019
Peer-review started: December 31, 2019
First decision: February 24, 2020
Revised: March 27, 2020
Accepted: May 27, 2020
Article in press: May 27, 2020
Published online: June 7, 2020
Processing time: 158 Days and 3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Patient-derived xenograft model has emerged as an important tool for personalized medicine. Zebrafish embryos offer several advantages: the short generation time, the large number of offspring, the transparency, and the small size therefore making zebrafish a more practical and less expensive laboratory system than others in vivo cancer models. We developed a model to use zebrafish embryos as avatar of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, standardizing the protocol for the xenotransplantation of pancreatic tumor tissue, for the exposition of the xenotransplanted zebrafish embryos to the chemotherapy drugs, and for the evaluation of the effects of chemotherapy on the xenotransplanted tumor tissue.