Gene expression analysis of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells in the zebrafish kidney

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) maintain the entire blood system throughout the life and are utilized for a therapeutic component of blood diseases. The zebrafish is an elegant genetic model for the study of hematopoiesis due to its many unique advantages. We have developed the method to isolate zebrafish HSCs by a combination of two HSC-related transgenic lines, gata2a:GFP and runx1:mCherry. In this study, we performed RNA-seq analysis in three distinct hematopoietic cell populations in the adult kidney, gata2a+ runx1+ cells (HSCs), gata2a− runx1+ cells (erythroid- and/or myeloid-primed progenitors), and gata2a+ runx1− cells (lymphoid-primed progenitors). mRNA profiles of isolated gata2a+ runx1+ cells, gata2a− runx1+ cells, and gata2a+ runx1− cells in the zebrafish kidney were generated by Quartz-seq using Illumina NextSeq500.