Fig. 6

Fig. 6

a, b General morphology of zebrafish adults: a wild-type; bgata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutant showing skin infection (blue arrowhead) and pericardial oedema (yellow arrowhead). c Over 25% (n = 29/108) of gata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutants (red) catch infections or suffer from heart oedemas by 6 months. Only around 65% (n = 69/108) survive for more than 12 months without overt signs of infections. Fewer than 1% (n = 2/500) of wild-type fish (blue) exhibit such defects. The graph does not include deaths by other causes. d, e May-Grunwald/Wright-Giemsa staining in cytospins of haematopoietic cells isolated from the WKM of zebrafish adults: d wild-type; egata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutant. Note the decrease in cell numbers. f Cell counts of haematopoietic cells isolated from WKM of wild-type (n = 14) and gata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutants (n = 8). The gata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutants show a ~2-fold decrease in haematopoietic cell numbers in the WKM (μ_wt = 4.37 × 10⁵; μ_mut = 2.37 × 10⁵, p = 0.0185, Mann-Whitney test). (g) Number of neutrophils isolated from WKM of wild-type (n = 14) and gata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutants (n = 7). The gata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutants show a ~2-fold decrease in neutrophil numbers in the WKM (μ_wt = 2.17 × 10⁵; μ_mut = 1.03 × 10⁵, p = 0.0269, Mann-Whitney test). Error bars: median cell number ± SD. h, i Kidney smears from 9 months post-fertilization adult animals were assessed. h Wild-type shows various stages of lineage differentiation. i WKM smear; 1 of 10 gata2a^Δi4/Δi4 mutants showed the presence of excess blasts with very little erythroid differentiation (98% blasts, >200 cells assessed). Scalebars: 2 mm (a, b) and 10 μm (d, e, h, i). See also Supplementary Fig.6.