Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Macrophage adaptation to hypoxia in the tuberculous granuloma potentiates mycobacterium-induced mitochondrial damage and granuloma necrosis
doi: 10.64898/2026.02.06.702658
Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) Confocal micrograph of a granuloma with central necrosis isolated 4 weeks post infection (wpi) from a Tg(4xhre-tata:mCherry,cmlc2:eGFP) adult animal infected intraperitoneally with mWasabi-expressing Mm. Infected cells in non-necrotic regions of the granuloma (arrowheads) show low HIF activity compared to cells within the necrotic core (dashed lines). Hoechst-labelled nuclei (blue), Mm (green), HRE-driven mCherry expression (magenta). Scale bar, 10 μm. See Movie S2. (B) Overlaid widefield and bright field micrographs of vhl sa40757/sa40757 and wild-type siblings expressing Tg(4xhre-tata:mCherry,cmlc2:EGFP) 5 dpf. HRE-driven mCherry expression (red), constitutive epicardial GFP signal confirms transgene expression (blue). Scale bar, 1000 μm. Zebrafish were infected via the caudal vein (C – H, J, M and N) or the hindbrain ventricle (L) with tdTomato-expressing Mm of the indicated strains 2 dpf. (C) Confocal micrographs of WT (top) and vhl sa40757/sa40757 (bottom) Tg(mpeg1:YFP) animals 5 dpi. Scale bar, 50 μm. (D) Quantification of extracellular mycobacterial growth (cording) in animals from vhl sa40757/+ incross 5dpi. (E) Quantification of macrophages in Mm-infected and age-matched uninfected animals from vhl sa40757/+ incross expressing Tg(mpeg1:YFP) 5 dpi. Symbols represent individual animals. Horizontal lines indicate mean values. (F) Widefield micrograph of Mm fluorescence, in vhl sa40757/sa40757 and WT sibling 5dpi. Scale bar, 1000 μm. (G) Quantification of Mm fluorescent pixel counts (FPC) in animals from vhl sa40757/+ incross 5dpi. Symbols represent individual animals. Horizontal lines indicate mean values. (H) Quantification of mycobacterial cording 5 dpi. (I) Overlaid widefield and bright field micrographs of Tg(4xhre-tata:mCherry,cmlc2:EGFP) animals 5 dpf, three days after treatment with roxadustat (ROXA, 60 μM) or 0.5% DMSO. Scale bar 1000 μm. (J) Quantification of Mm cording in roxadustat (ROXA)- and vehicle-treated animals 5dpi. (K) Quantification of MitoTracker CMH 2 -Xros mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) in uninfected (bystander) and Mm-infected macrophages from Tg(mpeg1:YFP) animals treated with roxadustat (ROXA) or vehicle, 24 hours-post caudal vein infection with BFP2-expressing Mm and drug treatment. Symbols indicate values from individual macrophages. Horizontal lines indicate mean values. (L) Quantification of average mitochondrial sphericity in granuloma macrophages from WT and vhl G 0 crispants expressing Tg(mfap4:MTS-EGFP) 2 dpi. Horizontal lines indicate pooled mean values. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. (M) Quantification of Mm cording in WT animals infected with WT or Δ ESX-1 Mm and treated with roxadustat (ROXA) or vehicle 5dpi. (N) Mycobacterial cording in roxadustat (ROXA)- and vehicle-treated animals infected with ΔesxA Mm or ΔexsA Mm complemented with WT or point mutant Mtb esxA , 5dpi. Statistical significance was determined by (D, H, J, M, and N) Fisher exact test, and (E, G, K, and L) one-way ANOVA with Tukey post-test. ns p > 0.05 , * p < 0.05 , *** p < 0.001 , and **** p < 0.0001 . Data are representative of two (H and L) or three (D, G, J, K and M) independent experiments.
Article Snippet: The plasmid used to generate the Tg(mfap4:MTS-EGFP:myl7:RFP) cu72 was created by cloning EGFP tagged with a mitochondrial targeting sequence (MTS-EGFP) from (RRID:Addgene_31241) into a pCS2-based Tol2 vector containing the mfap4 macrophage-specific promoter sequence and the myl7 promoter sequence driving RFP expression in the heart , using the Gibson Cloning kit (New England Biolabs).
Techniques: Isolation, Infection, Expressing, Activity Assay, Fluorescence, Mutagenesis