Desease models in vertebrates : from hypoxia to cancer

Santos Marques, I.J. dos (2011)

Doctoral Thesis

Vertebrates, especially mammals, have long been used as research models in the study of human diseases. During this research we have demonstrated the usefulness of a relatively new animal model, the zebrafish, in understanding human disease formation, progression and even treatment. We first analysed the impact that exposure to constant chronic hypoxia has in the zebrafish heart, both at the morphological and genetic levels. On chapters three and four we demonstrated the worth of the zebrafish larvae in understanding metastasis formation and progression. Whereas in chapter three we focused on the use of the zebrafish as a model to rapidly test the metastatic behaviour of human pancreatic cancer cell lines and primary human tumours; on chapter four we researched the role of retinoic acid receptor antagonist, and mir10-a, as a potential new anti-cancer therapy for pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

• Metastasis
• miR10-a
• Retinoic acid receptor antagonist
• Zebrafish
• Pancratic adenocarcinoma
• Hypoxia

• All authors: Santos Marques, I.J. dos
• Supervisor: Spaink, H.P.; Richardson, M.K.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), Faculty of Science, Leiden University
• Date: 2011-06-29
• Court: LEI Universiteit Leiden
• Sponsorship: Grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), reference SFRH/BD/27262/2006, financed by the POHP-QREN- tipology 4.1- Advanced Formation, and co-funded by the European Social Fund and national funds from the MCTES