Distinct roles of core autophagy-related genes in zebrafish definitive hematopoiesis.

Despite the well-described discrepancy between (macroautophagy/autophagy-related) genes in the regulation of hematopoiesis, varying essentiality of core ATG proteins in vertebrate definitive hematopoiesis remains largely unclear. Here, we employed zebrafish () to compare the functions of six core genes, including , (beclin1), , , , and , in vertebrate definitive hematopoiesis via clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 ribonucleoprotein and morpholino targeting. Zebrafish with various mutations showed autophagic deficiency and presented partially consistent hematopoietic abnormalities during early development.