A zebrafish model of Ifih1-driven Aicardi-Goutières syndrome reproduces the interferon signature and the exacerbated inflammation of patients
Type I Interferonopathies are a heterogenic group of rare diseases associated with an increase of type I interferon (IFN). The main challenge for the study of Type I interferonopathies is the lack of a well-founded animal model in which better characterize the phenotype as well as to perform fast and large drug screenings to offer the best treatment options. In this study, we report the development of a transgenic zebrafish model of Type I interferonopathy overexpressing ifih1 carrying the mutation p.Arg742His (Tg(ifih1_mut)), corresponding to the human mutation p.Arg779His. RNA sequence analysis from Tg(ifih1_mut) larvae revealed a systemic inflammation and IFN signature upon a suboptimal poly I:C induction compared with wild type larvae, confirming the phenotype observed in patients suffering from Type I interferonopathies. More interestingly, the phenotype was manifested in the zebrafish inflammation and Type I IFN reporters nfkb:eGFP and isg15:eGFP, respectively, making this zebrafish model suitable for future high throughput chemical screening (HTS). Using the unique advantages of the zebrafish model for gene editing we have generated Tg(ifih1_mut) knocked down for mavs and ikbke, that completely abrogated the Poly I:C induction and activation of the GFP of the reporters. Finally, we used an FDA approved drug, Baricitinib (Jak1/Jak2 inhibitor), which was able to reduce the inflammation and the ISGs expression. Our results demonstrate the potential of this model to further understand AGS pathological mechanisms and to identify novel therapeutic drugs by HTS. Overall design: To investigate the difference in the gene expression between zebrafish larvae control vs Tg(ifih1_mut) with and without Poly I:C stimulation, we sent to analyze 3dpf larvae of each group by RNAseq.