Alternative Animal Models in Cancer Research

Abstract

Cancer, a broad word encompassing a range of diseases characterized by the excessive division of abnormal cells, has emerged as a major public health concern around the world, and it became the second biggest cause of death. Animal models are valuable tools in cancer biology by playing vital role in understanding disease and the development of anticancer drugs, despite their limitations in terms of predictive and translational relevance to humans. Cancer models can be classified as naturally occurring or artificially created experimental systems that exhibit similar characteristics to human cancers despite their heterogeneity. One of the most challenging features of cancer evaluation is on deciding the better model representing the given tumor system. Therefore, various investigations on cancer models have been done to better understand cancer invasion, progression, and early diagnosis. These models shed light on the etiology of cancer, its genetic basis, the host–tumor interaction, preclinical investigation of anticancer therapeutics, the role of microenvironment in caner progression, and tumor variability in tumor transformation and metastasis. These models are also valuable for drug development since they can forecast new cancer markers and targeted therapies. Several major tumor animal models, both in vitro and in vivo, and the advancement of animal models in malignant research are comprehensively covered in this work. Although none of the cancer models are ideal, they all have significant shortcomings that limit their application by narrowing the gap between basic cancer research and translational treatment. However, when properly designed and performed, animal models can give invaluable information to our biological knowledge and medicine, as well as the discovery and evolution of advanced drugs.