Transgenic animals are invaluable for modeling cancer genomics, but often require complex
crosses of multiple germline alleles to obtain the desired combinations. Zebrafish models
have advantages in that transgenes can be rapidly tested by mosaic expression, but
typically lack spatial and temporal control of tumor onset, which limits their utility for the study
of tumor progression and metastasis. To overcome these limitations, we have developed a
method referred to as Transgene Electroporation in Adult Zebrafish (TEAZ). TEAZ can …

Transgenic expression of genes is a mainstay of cancer modeling in zebrafish. Traditional
transgenic techniques rely upon injection into one-cell embryos, but ideally these
transgenes would be expressed only in adult somatic tissues. We provide a method to
model cancer in adult zebrafish in which transgenes can be expressed via electroporation.
Using melanoma as an example, we demonstrate the feasibility of expressing oncogenes
such as BRAFV600E as well as CRISPR/Cas9 inactivation of tumor suppressors such as …