Transparent Adult Zebrafish As a Tool for in Vivo Transplantation Analysis

Overview

Journal Cell Stem Cell

Publisher Cell Press

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2008 Mar 29

PMID 18371439

Citations 659

Authors

Richard Mark White

Anna Sessa

Christopher Burke

Teresa Bowman

Jocelyn LeBlanc

Craig Ceol

Caitlin Bourque

Michael Dovey

Wolfram Goessling

Caroline Erter Burns

Leonard I Zon

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The zebrafish is a useful model for understanding normal and cancer stem cells, but analysis has been limited to embryogenesis due to the opacity of the adult fish. To address this, we have created a transparent adult zebrafish in which we transplanted either hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells or tumor cells. In a hematopoiesis radiation recovery assay, transplantation of GFP-labeled marrow cells allowed for striking in vivo visual assessment of engraftment from 2 hr-5 weeks posttransplant. Using FACS analysis, both transparent and wild-type fish had equal engraftment, but this could only be visualized in the transparent recipient. In a tumor engraftment model, transplantation of RAS-melanoma cells allowed for visualization of tumor engraftment, proliferation, and distant metastases in as little as 5 days, which is not seen in wild-type recipients until 3 to 4 weeks. This transparent adult zebrafish serves as the ideal combination of both sensitivity and resolution for in vivo stem cell analyses.

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