TY  - JOUR
TI  - Zebrafish Bacterial Infection Assay to Study Host-Pathogen Interactions
AU  - Basheer, Faiza  
AU  - Liongue, Clifford 
AU  - Ward, Alister C.
VL  - 10
IS  - 5
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/03/05
SP  - e3536
C1  - Bio-protocol 2020;10:e3536
DO  - 10.21769/BioProtoc.3536
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21769/BioProtoc.3536
AB  - The study of host-pathogen interactions has improved our understanding of both pathogenesis and the response of the host to infection, including both innate and adaptive responses. Neutrophils and macrophages represent the first line of innate host defense against any infection. The zebrafish is an ideal model to study the response of these cells to a variety of pathogens. Zebrafish possess both neutrophils and macrophages exhibiting similar defense mechanisms to their human counterparts. The transparency of zebrafish embryos greatly facilitates in vivo tracking of infection dynamics in a non-invasive manner at high-resolution using labelled pathogens, while immune cells can also be labelled transgenically to enable even more in-depth analysis. Here we describe a procedure for performing a bacterial infection assay in zebrafish embryos using fluorescently-labelled E. coli bacteria and demonstrate the monitoring and quantification of the infection kinetics. Of note, this procedure helps in understanding the functional role of genes that are important in driving the innate immune response.
KW  - Infection
KW  - Fluorescent bacteria
KW  - Innate immunity
KW  - Zebrafish
KW  - Imaging
JF  - Bio-protocol
SN  - 2331-8325
PB  - Bio-protocol LLC.
BIO101  - False