Fishing for drugs

Chinyere Kemet1, Emily Hill1, Hui Feng1,2

  • 1Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, United States.

Elife
|February 8, 2022
PubMed

Insights

Screening zebrafish embryos for drugs that disrupt development can reveal new treatments. These findings may lead to therapies that effectively suppress cancer metastasis.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental biology
  • Cancer research
  • Pharmacology

Background:

  • Metastasis, the spread of cancer, is a major cause of cancer-related mortality.
  • Identifying novel therapeutic targets to inhibit metastasis is a critical unmet need in oncology.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the utility of zebrafish embryonic development screening for identifying drugs that inhibit cancer metastasis.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized zebrafish embryos as a model system for high-throughput drug screening.
  • Assessed the effects of screened compounds on embryonic development and metastatic potential.

Main Results:

  • Identified several compounds that disrupt normal embryonic development in zebrafish.
  • Demonstrated that a subset of these compounds also effectively suppresses metastasis in preclinical models.

Conclusions:

  • Zebrafish embryonic development screening is a viable approach for discovering anti-metastatic agents.
  • This strategy holds promise for identifying novel therapeutic strategies to combat cancer spread.