Abstract
A Big Catch for Germ Cell Tumour Research
Highlights
Researchers seeking to identify such mechanisms have been hindered by the limited Testicular germ cell tumour (TGCT) animal models available far
Zebrafish carrying nonsense mutations in alk6b/bmpr1bb, an ortholog of the human bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) receptor BMPR1B, develop TGCTs resembling human seminomas [14,15]. This finding illuminated the importance of BMP signaling in germ cell development and implicated disruption of BMP signaling in human germ cell tumourigenesis [16]
These tumours, similar to those arising in bmpr1bb-deficient zebrafish, contain sheets of uniform, undifferentiated germ cells, resembling human seminoma
Summary
Researchers seeking to identify such mechanisms have been hindered by the limited TGCT animal models available far. Two heritable TGCT models have been previously described: one in mouse and one in zebrafish. This discovery, which led to the experimental derivation of embryonic stem cells [9,10], has proved to be a useful model of teratoma formation.
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