PUBLICATION
Zebrafish Avatar-test forecasts clinical response to chemotherapy in patients with colorectal cancer
- Authors
- Costa, B., Estrada, M.F., Gomes, A., Fernandez, L.M., Azevedo, J.M., Póvoa, V., Fontes, M., Alves, A., Galzerano, A., Castillo-Martin, M., Herrando, I., Brandão, S., Carneiro, C., Nunes, V., Carvalho, C., Parvaiz, A., Marreiros, A., Fior, R.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-240606-14
- Date
- 2024
- Source
- Nature communications 15: 47714771 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Antineoplastic Agents/therapeutic use
- Humans
- Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays
- Precision Medicine/methods
- Disease Models, Animal
- Female
- Male
- Colorectal Neoplasms*/drug therapy
- Colorectal Neoplasms*/pathology
- Apoptosis/drug effects
- Animals
- Progression-Free Survival
- Avatar
- Zebrafish*
- PubMed
- 38839755 Full text @ Nat. Commun.
Citation
Costa, B., Estrada, M.F., Gomes, A., Fernandez, L.M., Azevedo, J.M., Póvoa, V., Fontes, M., Alves, A., Galzerano, A., Castillo-Martin, M., Herrando, I., Brandão, S., Carneiro, C., Nunes, V., Carvalho, C., Parvaiz, A., Marreiros, A., Fior, R. (2024) Zebrafish Avatar-test forecasts clinical response to chemotherapy in patients with colorectal cancer. Nature communications. 15:47714771.
Abstract
Cancer patients often undergo rounds of trial-and-error to find the most effective treatment because there is no test in the clinical practice for predicting therapy response. Here, we conduct a clinical study to validate the zebrafish patient-derived xenograft model (zAvatar) as a fast predictive platform for personalized treatment in colorectal cancer. zAvatars are generated with patient tumor cells, treated exactly with the same therapy as their corresponding patient and analyzed at single-cell resolution. By individually comparing the clinical responses of 55 patients with their zAvatar-test, we develop a decision tree model integrating tumor stage, zAvatar-apoptosis, and zAvatar-metastatic potential. This model accurately forecasts patient progression with 91% accuracy. Importantly, patients with a sensitive zAvatar-test exhibit longer progression-free survival compared to those with a resistant test. We propose the zAvatar-test as a rapid approach to guide clinical decisions, optimizing treatment options and improving the survival of cancer patients.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping