小鼠肝癌模型研究进展

肝癌至今仍是全球高死亡率癌症之一。动物模型特别是小鼠模型是研究肝癌生物学特性、发病机制、新药筛选和治疗的重要工具。近年来,各种小鼠肝癌模型的发展在一定程度上促进了肝癌的相关研究,但是现有模型都有一定不足。缺乏与人类肝癌高度相似且经济适用的动物模型严重制约着对肝癌的深入研究。随着基因修饰技术的发展,小鼠肝癌模型的构建更加快速、容易和方便。本文拟对用于肝癌研究的各种小鼠模型进行概述,并着重强调基因修饰小鼠肝癌模型的构建,以期为相关癌症基因功能研究、应用基因编辑技术研发肝癌模型提供新思路和方向。

A brief review on the progress of mouse models of liver cancer

Liver cancer remains one of the leading cause of cancer death in the worldwide. Animal models, especially mouse models, are important tools for studying the biological characteristics, pathogenesis, new drug screening and therapy of liver cancer. Up to now, although the development of various animal models accelerates the researches of liver cancer, all the existing models have their own disadvantages. Lacking of economical and applicable animal models that can mimic the liver cancer seriously restrict the further study of liver cancer. With the development of the genetically modified technologies, it provides a fast, easy and reliable method to establish liver cancer models. In this review, we describe the different types of mouse models used in liver cancer research, with emphasis on genetically engineered mice used in this field, which could open an avenue for functional cancer genomics and liver cancer models generation by using gene editing technologies.