Zebrafish live imaging: a strong weapon in anticancer drug discovery and development

Developing anticancer drugs is a complex and time-consuming process. The inability of current laboratory models to reflect important aspects of the tumor in vivo limits anticancer medication research. Zebrafish is a rapid, semi-automated in vivo screening platform that enables the use of non-invasive imaging methods to monitor morphology, survival, developmental status, response to drugs, locomotion, or other behaviors. Zebrafish models are widely used in drug discovery and development for anticancer drugs, especially in conjunction with live imaging techniques. Herein, we concentrated on the use of zebrafish live imaging in anticancer therapeutic research, including drug screening, efficacy assessment, toxicity assessment, and mechanism studies. Zebrafish live imaging techniques have been used in numerous studies, but this is the first time that these techniques have been comprehensively summarized and compared side by side. Finally, we discuss the hypothesis of Zebrafish Composite Model, which may provide future directions for zebrafish imaging in the field of cancer research.