PUBLICATION

Enforced expression of simian virus 40 large T-antigen leads to testicular germ cell tumors in zebrafish

Authors
Gill, J.A., Lowe, L., Nguyen, J., Liu, P.P., Blake, T., Venkatesh, B., and Aplan, P.D.
ID
ZDB-PUB-101222-28
Date
2010
Source
Zebrafish   7(4): 333-341 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Aplan, Peter D., Venkatesh, Byrappa
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Animals, Genetically Modified
  • Antigens, Viral, Tumor/genetics*
  • Disease Models, Animal*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Neoplasms, Germ Cell and Embryonal/pathology*
  • Simian virus 40/genetics
  • Takifugu/genetics
  • Testicular Neoplasms/pathology*
  • Testis/pathology
  • Zebrafish*/genetics
PubMed
21158563 Full text @ Zebrafish
Abstract
Testicular germ cell tumors (TGCTs) are the most common malignancy in young men. However, there are few in vivo animal models that have been developed to study this disease. We have used the pufferfish (fugu) lymphocyte-specific protein tyrosine kinase (flck) promoter, which has been shown to enforce high-level expression in the testes of transgenic mice, to express Simian virus 40 large T-antigen in zebrafish testes. Zebrafish that express T-antigen develop TGCTs after a long latency of >1 year. Although overt TGCTs are only evident in 20% of the fish, occult TGCTs can be detected in 90% of the transgenic fish by 36 month of age. The TGCTs resemble the human disease in terms of morphology and gene expression pattern, and can be transplanted to healthy wild-type recipient fish. In addition, enforced expression of the zebrafish stem cell leukemia (scl) gene in the zebrafish testes also generated TGCTs in transgenic fish. These results demonstrate the feasibility of studying TGCTs in a model organism.
Genes / Markers
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Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping