Animal models of cholangiocarcinoma

Even though recent accumulated data can help to understand fundamental molecular mechanisms of progression of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), its incidence and mortality still keep increasing worldwide with poor prognosis. As appropriate animal disease models are critical to fill the gap between the findings from in vitro and the applications to human diseases, lack of effective and patient-like CCA animal models may contribute to limits of controlling progression of CCA. This review is focusing to provide the information about recently developed CCA animal models.

Recent advancements in cell and molecular biology make it possible to mimic the pathogenicity of human CCA using various animal models. In this review, several up-to-date techniques and the examples to induce CCA in animal models (xenograft and orthotopic models, carcinogen-induced CCA model, genetically engineered mouse model for CCA) with resemblance of human CCA are discussed.

Not only establishing animal models relevant to CCA is beneficial for its early diagnosis and therapy but also well suited experimental CCA models will guide the development of applicable treatment strategy for the hard-to-cure CCA.