Exposure to the gut microbiota from cigarette smoke-exposed mice exacerbates cigarette smoke extract-induced inflammation in zebrafish larvae.

Cigarette smoke (CS)-induced inflammation leads to a range of diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cancer. The gut microbiota is a major modifying environmental factor that determine the severity of cigarette smoke-induced pathology. Microbiomes and metabolites from CS-exposed mice exacerbate lung inflammation via the gut-lung axis of shared mucosal immunity in mice but these systems are expensive to establish and analyse.

Transplantation of high fat fed mouse microbiota into zebrafish larvae identifies MyD88-dependent acceleration of hyperlipidaemia by Gram-positive cell wall components.

Gut dysbiosis is an important modifier of pathologies including cardiovascular disease but our understanding of the role of individual microbes is limited. Here, we have used transplantation of mouse microbiota into microbiota-deficient zebrafish larvae to study the interaction between members of a mammalian high fat diet-associated gut microbiota with a lipid rich diet challenge in a tractable model species. We find zebrafish larvae are more susceptible to hyperlipidaemia when exposed to the mouse high fat-diet-associated microbiota and that this effect can be driven by two individual bacterial species fractionated from the mouse high fat-diet-associated microbiota.

Glucose inhibits haemostasis and accelerates diet-induced hyperlipidaemia in zebrafish larvae.

Hyperglycaemia damages the microvasculature in part through the reduced recruitment of immune cells and interference with platelet signalling, leading to poor wound healing and accelerated lipid deposition in mammals. We investigated the utility of zebrafish larvae to model the effect of exogenous glucose on neutrophil and macrophage recruitment to a tail wound, wound-induced haemostasis, and chicken egg yolk feed challenge-induced hyperlipidaemia by supplementing larvae with exogenous glucose by immersion or injection. Neither method of glucose supplementation affected the recruitment of neutrophils and macrophages following tail transection.