Zebrafish As an Animal Model for Cancer Research

Zebrafish has emerged as a veritable animal tool used for modeling human cancers. It is currently used to study the development of tumors in several organs in relation to human cancers. This model studies the similarity in the morphology, histology, physiology, and genetic composition of zebrafish cancer model and human malignancies. This model gives room for cancer therapeutic research, drug design, and modification. With the zebrafish as an animal model for cancer, research tools can have relatively short duration and little amount of drug can be easily tested, easily manipulated, transparent, and highly predictable. It is of note that the zebrafish cancer model provides suitable underlying and unique insights into mechanisms of cancers. It may provide possible cancer chemopreventive actions based on the underlying mechanisms. This chapter compiles the biology of zebrafish and its suitability as an animal model for cancer.