PUBLICATION
Chemokine Receptors and Phagocyte Biology in Zebrafish
- Authors
- Sommer, F., Torraca, V., Meijer, A.H.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-200403-40
- Date
- 2020
- Source
- Frontiers in immunology 11: 325 (Review)
- Registered Authors
- Meijer, Annemarie H., Sommer, Frida, Torraca, Vincenzo
- Keywords
- Mycobacterium marinum, cancer, chemokine receptor, infection, inflammation, phagocytes, wounding, zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Humans
- Immunity, Innate
- Inflammation/immunology
- Macrophages/immunology
- Neoplasms/immunology
- Phagocytes/metabolism*
- Receptors, Chemokine/immunology*
- Receptors, Chemokine/metabolism*
- Wounds and Injuries/immunology
- Zebrafish/immunology*
- PubMed
- 32161595 Full text @ Front Immunol
Citation
Sommer, F., Torraca, V., Meijer, A.H. (2020) Chemokine Receptors and Phagocyte Biology in Zebrafish. Frontiers in immunology. 11:325.
Abstract
Phagocytes are highly motile immune cells that ingest and clear microbial invaders, harmful substances, and dying cells. Their function is critically dependent on the expression of chemokine receptors, a class of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Chemokine receptors coordinate the recruitment of phagocytes and other immune cells to sites of infection and damage, modulate inflammatory and wound healing responses, and direct cell differentiation, proliferation, and polarization. Besides, a structurally diverse group of atypical chemokine receptors (ACKRs) are unable to signal in G-protein-dependent fashion themselves but can shape chemokine gradients by fine-tuning the activity of conventional chemokine receptors. The optically transparent zebrafish embryos and larvae provide a powerful in vivo system to visualize phagocytes during development and study them as key elements of the immune response in real-time. In this review, we discuss how the zebrafish model has furthered our understanding of the role of two main classes of chemokine receptors, the CC and CXC subtypes, in phagocyte biology. We address the roles of the receptors in the migratory properties of phagocytes in zebrafish models for cancer, infectious disease, and inflammation. We illustrate how studies in zebrafish enable visualizing the contribution of chemokine receptors and ACKRs in shaping self-generated chemokine gradients of migrating cells. Taking the functional antagonism between two paralogs of the CXCR3 family as an example, we discuss how the duplication of chemokine receptor genes in zebrafish poses challenges, but also provides opportunities to study sub-functionalization or loss-of-function events. We emphasize how the zebrafish model has been instrumental to prove that the major determinant for the functional outcome of a chemokine receptor-ligand interaction is the cell-type expressing the receptor. Finally, we highlight relevant homologies and analogies between mammalian and zebrafish phagocyte function and discuss the potential of zebrafish models to further advance our understanding of chemokine receptors in innate immunity and disease.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping