dock8 deficiency attenuates microglia colonization in early zebrafish larvae

Abstract

Microglia are tissue-resident macrophages that carry out immune functions in the brain. The deficiency or dysfunction of microglia has been implicated in many neurodegenerative disorders. DOCK8, a member of the DOCK family, functions as a guanine nucleotide exchange factor and plays key roles in immune regulation and neurological diseases. The functions of DOCK8 in microglia development are not fully understood. Here, we generated zebrafish dock8 mutants by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing and showed that dock8 mutations attenuate microglia colonization in the zebrafish midbrain at early larvae stages. In vivo time-lapse imaging revealed that the motility of macrophages was reduced in the dock8 mutant. We further found that cdc42/cdc42l, which encode the small GTPase activated by Dock8, also regulate microglia colonization in zebrafish. Collectively, our study suggests that the Dock8-Cdc42 pathway is required for microglia colonization in zebrafish larvae.

Metabolic and Transcriptomic Changes in the Mouse Brain in Response to Short-Term High-Fat Metabolic Stress

“…GCH1 deficiency was recently shown to activate the innate immune response in the brain [ 60 ]. Furthermore, genes involved in immunity and infection [e.g., chemokine ligand 19 (ccl19), dedicator of cytokinesis 8 (DOCK8), and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1)] [ 61 , 62 ] were also significantly dysregulated. Taken together, these transcriptomic changes in the brain in response to acute HFD feeding provide key insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying HFD-induced neural dysfunction, which can lead to impairments in cognition, mood control, and central nervous system (CNS) immunity.…”

In Search of a Target Gene for a Desirable Phenotype in Aquaculture: Genome Editing of Cyprinidae and Salmonidae Species

“…Genome editing has been used to model human tumors such as liver cancer [70], paraganglioma [71], skin melanoma [72], and epithelioid sarcoma [73]. Among neurologic diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [74], epilepsy [75][76][77][78][79] [105,106], inner ear [107][108][109][110][111], vestibular apparatus [111], otoliths [112], brain [89, [113][114][115][116][117], neural tissue [118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126][127] and nervous system [128][129][130], heart [131][132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139], cardiomyocytes [140][141]…”

“…Much of the work has focused on the role of specific genes in organ formation and function, including the lens [ 99 ], retina [ 100 , 101 , 102 ], optic neurons [ 103 , 104 ], ocular vessels [ 105 , 106 ], inner ear [ 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 ], vestibular apparatus [ 111 ], otoliths [ 112 ], brain [ 89 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 , 117 ], neural tissue [ 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 125 , 126 , 127 ] and nervous system [ 128 , 129 , 130 ], heart [ 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 , 137 , 138 , 139 ], cardiomyocytes [ 140 , 141 , 142 , 143 ], including cardiovascular rate control [ 144 , 145 ], blood vessels [ 146 , 147 ,…”