Depletion of Foxk transcription factors causes genome-wide transcriptional misregulation and developmental arrest in zebrafish embryos

Foxk proteins are transcriptional regulators implicated in key biological processes such as glycolysis, autophagy and cell cycle regulation, among others. Here we employ targeted morpholino knockdown to deplete Foxk1, Fokx2, and Foxk2-1 proteins in developing zebrafish embryos. We demonstrate that the loss of Foxk transcription factors causes genome-wide transcriptional misregulation, characterised by upregulation of autophagy-related genes and downregulation of cell cycle regulators. The phenotype is embryonic lethal with the majority of embryos not surviving past 24hpf.