Rhomboid protease Rhbdl2 regulates macrophage recruitment and wound regeneration in zebrafish

Because Rhbdl2 functions as an intramembrane protease that directly cleaves and regulates the abundance of its substrates, we sought to determine how loss of Rhbdl2 impacts the global proteome in vivo. To obtain an unbiased, systems-level view of protein-level changes associated with Rhbdl2 deficiency, we performed label-free quantitative proteomics on zebrafish larvae. We focused our analysis at 2 dpf, a developmental stage at which Rhbdl2 expression is well established to be in epithelial tissues, based on in situ hybridization data from ZFIN. We utilized label-free quantitative proteomics to analyze global proteome changes in 2 dpf zebrafish larvae, comparing WT (n=150) and rhbdl2⁻/⁻ mutant (n=150) groups.