Microglia are Central Nervous System – resident macrophages that play essential roles during development, homeostasis and disease. Number of studies about microglia carrying on zebrafish in the past decades has dramatically increased due to numerous advantages of this animal model, particularly the optical transparency, which allows the in vivo time – lapse imaging for surveillance of microglia behavior in different conditions. Therefore, the microglial specific markers are indeed pivotal to further study about development and maintenance of microglia. Here, we have discovered the specificity of ccl34b.1 to zebrafish microglia throughout development. Moreover, by using Bacterial Artificial Chromosome transgenesis, we have successfully generated TgBACBAC(ccl34b.1:eGFP) reporter li...[ Read more ]

Microglia are Central Nervous System – resident macrophages that play essential roles during development, homeostasis and disease. Number of studies about microglia carrying on zebrafish in the past decades has dramatically increased due to numerous advantages of this animal model, particularly the optical transparency, which allows the in vivo time – lapse imaging for surveillance of microglia behavior in different conditions. Therefore, the microglial specific markers are indeed pivotal to further study about development and maintenance of microglia. Here, we have discovered the specificity of ccl34b.1 to zebrafish microglia throughout development. Moreover, by using Bacterial Artificial Chromosome transgenesis, we have successfully generated TgBACBAC(ccl34b.1:eGFP) reporter line. Furthermore, characterization of TgBACBAC(ccl34b.1:eGFP) has demonstrated the specific expression of cc34b.1 in microglia. Taken together, we propose that ccl34b.1 is a signature gene for microglia.