Zebrafish nephrosin helps host defence againstinfection.

Abstract

Neutrophils play important roles in innate immunity and are mainly dependent on various enzyme-containing granules to kill engulfed microorganisms. Zebrafish() is specifically expressed in neutrophils; however, its function is largely unknown. Here, we generated anmutant () via CRISPR/Cas9 to investigate thefunction of Npsn. The overall development and number of neutrophils remained unchanged in-deficient mutants, whereas neutrophil antibacterial function was defective. Upon infection with, themutants exhibited a lower survival rate and more severe bacterial burden, as well as augmented inflammatory response to challenge with infection when compared with wild-type embryos, whereas-overexpressing zebrafish exhibited enhanced host defence againstinfection. These findings demonstrated that zebrafish Npsn promotes host defence against bacterial infection. Furthermore, our findings suggested that-deficient and -overexpressing zebrafish might serve as effective models ofinnate immunity.