Establishment of a Zebrafish Xenograft Model for Investigation of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a unique malignant tumor of the head and neck. Despite higher survival rates by the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the recurrence or metastasis of NPC still occurs at about 10%. Therefore, there is urgent demand to develop more effective models for preclinical trials to investigate the mechanisms of NPC development and progression and to explore better treatment approaches. In this study, we transplanted human NPC CNE1 cells into zebrafish embryos to establish a xenograft model of NPC, where the proliferation and invasion behaviors of NPC cells were investigated . Combining and analyses, we found that activating transcription factor 7 (ATF7) was involved in the occurrence and development of NPC regulated by peptidyl-prolyl - isomerase NIMA-interacting 1 (Pin1). The zebrafish NPC xenograft model established here thereby provides an tool for exploring the occurrence and development of NPC, which may help to identify new tumor markers and develop new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of NPC.