The impact of deleting the mitfa gene in zebrafish on the intestinal microbiota community.

To explore the relationship between the mitfa gene and intestinal microbiota, the 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing was performed to compare the intestinal microbiota composition of the mitfa knockout zebrafish line (CKO group) and the wild-type zebrafish (WT group) in this study. The results showed that the Fusobacteria and Firmicutes were significantly decreased and the Dependentiae and Patescibacteria were significantly increased in the CKO group at the phylum level. Furthermore, the relative abundance of Citrobacter, Gordonia, Mesorhizobium, Legionella, and Bradyrhizobium were extremely higher in the CKO group, whereas the other four genera Nocardia, Pannonibacter, Shinella, and Cetobacterium were significantly declined in the CKO group at the genus level. Due to these changed intestinal microbiota appear to be related to lipid metabolism and immunity, eight lipid metabolism-related genes and nine inflammation-related genes were detected in the intestinal. The results showed that the expression levels of these genes were significant differences between the CKO and WT group. These results indicated that the deletion of mitfa can affect the expression levels of immune and metabolism-related genes, and causing changes in the composition of the intestinal microbiota.