Planarians as models of cadmium-induced neoplasia provide measurable benchmarks for mechanistic studies.
Ecotoxicol Environ Saf
; 142: 544-554, 2017 Aug.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28482323
ABSTRACT
Bioassays of planarian neoplasia highlight the potential of these organisms as useful standards to assess whether environmental toxins such as cadmium promote tumorigenesis. These studies complement other investigations into the exceptional healing and regeneration of planarians - processes that are driven by a population of active stem cells, or neoblasts, which are likely transformed during planarian tumor growth. Our goal was to determine if planarian tumorigenesis assays are amenable to mechanistic studies of cadmium carcinogenesis. To that end we demonstrate, by examining both counts of cell populations by size, and instances of mitosis, that the activity of the stem cell population can be monitored. We also provide evidence that specific biomodulators can affect the potential of planarian neoplastic growth, in that an inhibitor of metalloproteinases effectively blocked the development of the lesions. From these results, we infer that neoblast activity does respond to cadmium-induced tumor growth, and that metalloproteinases are required for the progression of cancer in the planarian.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Planarians
/
Cadmium
/
Carcinogens
/
Cell Transformation, Neoplastic
/
Models, Biological
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Ecotoxicol Environ Saf
Year:
2017
Document type:
Article