Introduction
Representing approximately 6% of all pediatric malignancies, soft tissue sarcomas constitute the third most frequent extracranial solid malignant tumor entity in children . Rhabdomyosarcomas (RMS) are the most common pediatric soft tissue sarcomas  and a heterogeneous group of cancers. The main subgroups of RMS in children and adolescents are alveolar and embryonal, which differ in their histology and genetic underpinnings, but also their clinical behavior. Approximately 80% of alveolar RMS (ARMS) are associated with the chromosomal translocations t(2;13)(q35;q14) or t(1;13)(p36;q14) . These translocations lead to fusions of the FOXO1 gene on chromosome 13 to the PAX3gene on chromosome 2 or the PAX7 gene on chromosome 1. The resulting fusion genes PAX3-FOXO1 and PAX7- FOXO1 are considered drivers of malignancy in ARMS . Embryonal RMS (ERMS) show a higher degree of genetic diversity, including frequent RAS pathway gene mutations and genetic imbalances such as loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at chromosome locus 11p15 . This genomic region contains several genes that play important roles in growth control and are therefore associated with different types of embryonal tumors . There are major differences in clinical characteristics, response to therapy and outcomes between embryonal and alveolar RMS. The 5-year overall survival rate of pediatric patients with RMS is approximately 70% . ARMS are generally associated with substantially worse outcomes than ERMS . There is an urgent need to establish the anti-RMS efficacy of candidate drugs and improve long-term survival, especially for patients with relapsed or metastatic disease, for whom survival rates continue to be dismal . In this study, we sought to establish a rapid RMS research platform in zebrafish embryos by implanting 3 hours-old zebrafish embryos with RMS cells. RMS xenografts were shown to shrink in response to exposure to anti-RMS drugs in proof-of-principle experiments.