ELAVL1a is an immunocompetent protein that protects zebrafish embryos from bacterial infection

Autor: Shicui Zhang, Shousheng Ni, Yan Chen, Xia Wang, Yang Zhou, Xiaoyuan Du, Lili Song
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Lipopolysaccharides
0301 basic medicine
animal structures
Morpholino
QH301-705.5
Immunology
Medicine (miscellaneous)
Mutagenesis (molecular biology technique)
Article
General Biochemistry
Genetics and Molecular Biology
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Immune system
Gram-Negative Bacteria
Animals
Biology (General)
Zebrafish
Gram-Positive Bacterial Infections
Phylogeny
Gene knockdown
biology
Effector
Chemistry
Pattern recognition receptor
Gene Expression Regulation
Developmental
Antimicrobial responses
Zebrafish Proteins
biology.organism_classification
Cell biology
Teichoic Acids
Lipid A
030104 developmental biology
ELAV Proteins
030220 oncology & carcinogenesis
Mutation
embryonic structures
Lipoteichoic acid
Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Protein Binding
Zdroj: Communications Biology, Vol 4, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2021)
Communications Biology
ISSN: 2399-3642
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-021-01777-z
Popis: Previous studies have shown that ELAVL1 plays multiple roles, but its overall biological function remains ill-defined. Here we clearly demonstrated that zebrafish ELAVL1a was a lipoteichoic acid (LTA)- and LPS-binding protein abundantly stored in the eggs/embryos of zebrafish. ELAVL1a acted not only as a pattern recognition receptor, capable of identifying LTA and LPS, as well as bacteria, but also as an effector molecule, capable of inhibiting the growth of Gram-positive and -negative bacteria. Furthermore, we reveal that the C-terminal 62 residues of ELAVL1a positioned at 181–242 were indispensable for ELAVL1a antibacterial activity. Additionally, site-directed mutagenesis revealed that the hydrophobic residues Val192/Ile193, as well as the positively charged residues Arg203/Arg204, were the functional determinants contributing to the antimicrobial activity of rELAVL1a. Importantly, microinjection of rELAVL1a into embryos markedly promoted their resistance against pathogenic Aeromonas hydrophila challenge, and this pathogen-resistant activity was considerably reduced by co-injection of anti-ELAVL1a antibody or by knockdown with morpholino for elavl1a. Collectively, our results indicate that ELAVL1a is a maternal immune factor that can protect zebrafish embryos from bacterial infection. This work also provides another angle for understanding the biological roles of ELAVL1a.
Ni et al. show that RNA-binding protein ELAVL1a is abundantly stored in the eggs and embryos of zebrafish, serving as a first-line innate immune player. They find that ELAVL1a recognizes molecular patterns of bacteria to inhibit bacterial growth. This study suggests that ELAVL1a is a maternal immune factor protecting zebrafish embryos from bacterial infection.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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