Zhang Wenqing’s Lab has recently made important progress of the pathogenesis of common variable immunodeficiency disease (CVID).They found that zebrafish has a common molecular basis of B cell development as to human. For the first time, they found that zebrafish runx1 mutant has the similar phenotypes which have decreased B cell numbers, defects of maturation and immune function with normal T cell development, compared to human CVID patients. This study provides a model for the study of the mechanism of immune deficiency disease and its treatment, and for the first time proposes the evidence that runx1 mutation may lead to CVID, which provides a new theoretical basis for the disease. 

The results are entitled loss of runx1 function results in B cell immunodeficiency but not T cell in adult zebrafish and accepted by the well-known journal of molecular and cellular biology, Open Biology. Professor Zhang Wenqing of our school is the corresponding author of this paper, and associate Professor Huang Zhibin is the co-first author of this paper. The project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the team program of Guangdong Natural Science Foundation.

The defect of B cells production and function often lead to a variety of human diseases, including leukemia, CVID and X- linked Aglobulinemia.

CVID is a clinical heterogeneous primary immunodeficiency disease (PID), which is characterized by a marked decrease in IgA and / or IgM antibody production and lymphocyte dysplasia. In particular, B cell dysplasia is the main pathophysiological cause of CVID.

The development of lymphocytes and its related mechanisms in the pathogenesis of CVID are ambiguous. At present, only the symptomatic treatments were used, such as the introduction of immunoglobulin to alleviate the immune decline and prevent recurrent infection.

In this study, a CVID model of zebrafish runx1 mutants was established to investigate the regulation of RUNX1 on B cell growth and the pathogenesis of disease. For the first time, a powerful CVID model was established in zebrafish using hereditary runx1 mutants, which provides an opportunity for further study of B cell development and potential therapy in CVID patients.

Open Biology is an open peer-reviewed journal of molecular and cellular biology published by the Royal Society. In the last 5 years, the average influence factor was 4. 4.