肝脏疾病影响着全球数百万人，高发病率和死亡率部分归因于治疗方案的缺乏。在许多情况下，肝脏受损后会自我修复，得益于其卓越的再生能力，但在无法补偿损伤的情况下，会出现炎症和纤维化，从而导致肝癌的出现。全身动物模型在揭示肝脏生物学和病理学的基本机制以及发展和测试肝脏疾病新治疗方法之前扮演着重要角色。斑马鱼肝脏的细胞组成和功能与哺乳动物非常相似，斑马鱼也会患上许多人类常见的疾病，包括有毒物诱导的肝损伤、脂肪肝、纤维化和癌症。因此，在研究这些疾病机制和发展潜在治疗方法时，广泛使用斑马鱼幼鱼模型需要优化实验方法。本文描述了使用染色方法、成像和基因表达分析来评估斑马鱼幼鱼肝脏损伤、纤维化和癌变前变化的协议。© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Liver disease affects millions of people worldwide, and the high morbidity and mortality is attributed in part to the paucity of treatment options. In many cases, liver injury self-resolves due to the remarkable regenerative capacity of the liver, but in cases when regeneration cannot compensate for the injury, inflammation and fibrosis occur, creating a setting for the emergence of liver cancer. Whole animal models are crucial for deciphering the basic biological underpinnings of liver biology and pathology and, importantly, for developing and testing new treatments for liver disease before it progresses to a terminal state. The cellular components and functions of the zebrafish liver are highly similar to mammals, and zebrafish develop many diseases that are observed in humans, including toxicant-induced liver injury, fatty liver, fibrosis, and cancer. Therefore, the widespread use of zebrafish larvae for studying the mechanisms of these pathologies and for developing potential treatments necessitates the optimization of experimental approaches to assess liver disease in this model. Here, we describe protocols using staining methods, imaging, and gene expression analysis to assess liver injury, fibrosis, and preneoplastic changes in the liver of larval zebrafish.© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.