From Tank to Treatment: Modeling Melanoma in Zebrafish

Abstract

Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer and one of few cancers with a growing incidence. A thorough understanding of its pathogenesis is fundamental to developing new strategies to combat mortality and morbidity. Zebrafish-due in large part to their tractable genetics, conserved pathways, and optical properties-have emerged as an excellent system to model melanoma. Zebrafish have been used to study melanoma from a single tumor initiating cell, through metastasis, remission, and finally into relapse. In this review, we examine seminal zebrafish studies that have advanced our understanding of melanoma.