Open AccessLeveraging the zebrafish to model organ transplantation
Author(s) -
Luciana da Silveira Cavalcante,
Mehmet Toner,
Korkut Uygun,
Shan N. Tessier
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
current opinion in organ transplantation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.832
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1531-7013
pISSN - 1087-2418
DOI - 10.1097/mot.0000000000000696
Subject(s) - zebrafish , transplantation , economic shortage , expansive , organ transplantation , model organism , xenotransplantation , toolbox , biology , computational biology , regenerative medicine , computer science , stem cell , medicine , microbiology and biotechnology , gene , biochemistry , linguistics , philosophy , compressive strength , surgery , materials science , government (linguistics) , composite material , programming language
The availability of organs for transplant fails to meet the demand and this shortage is growing worse every year. As the cost of not getting a suitable donor organ can mean death for patients, new tools and approaches that allows us to make advances in transplantation faster and provide a different vantage point are required. To address this need, we introduce the concept of using the zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a new model system in organ transplantation. The zebrafish community offers decades of research experience in disease modeling and a rich toolbox of approaches for interrogating complex pathological states. We provide examples of how already existing zebrafish assays/tools from cancer, regenerative medicine, immunology, and others, could be leveraged to fuel new discoveries in pursuit of solving the organ shortage.