Publication Summary
The roles of the adaptive immune system, particularly the mechanisms activated by MHC class II antigen presentation following cardiac injury, remain a matter of debate. Here, the authors show the recruitment of CD4+ T cells and reveal the requirement of MHC class II antigen presentation for several aspects of zebrafish heart regeneration, further illustrating a pro-regenerative role for the adaptive immune response. These findings suggest the hypothesis that the balanced activity between adverse and regenerative adaptive immune programs, which differs between models, modulates the regenerative capacity of the heart. Ultimately, understanding the antigen presentation mechanisms and identifying the various antigens at play following cardiac injury in regenerative and non-regenerative settings should provide an important basis for immunomodulation strategies.
Enriching limited quantity samples with Levitation Technology
When working with limited sample quantities such as injured zebrafish hearts, the removal of dead cell populations is essential to maximize the resolution of the targeted populations of interest. Injured and border-zone-derived cell suspensions were depleted for dead cells using the LeviCellⓇ system and were counted and diluted to obtain 10,000 single-cell data points per sample. The versatility of sample types that can be run using Levitation Technology™ enabled the researchers to simultaneously enrich viable cells from limited quantities of zebrafish cardiac tissue while removing detrimental debris and dead/dying cells. This step helped to ensure that the samples were of the highest quality for their downstream analysis, enabling the researchers to identify key roles for antigen presentation and T cells in cardiac repair.
