Single-cell Transcriptional Landscape of Temporal Neutrophil Response to Burn Wound in Larval Zebrafish

Neutrophils accumulate early in tissue injury. However, the cellular and functional heterogeneity of neutrophils during homeostasis and in response to tissue damage remains unclear. In this study, we use larval zebrafish to understand neutrophil responses to thermal injury. Single-cell transcriptional mapping of myeloid cells during a 3-d time course in burn and control larvae revealed distinct neutrophil subsets and their cell–cell interactions with macrophages across time and conditions. The trajectory formed by three zebrafish neutrophil subsets resembles human neutrophil maturation, with varying transition patterns between conditions. Through ligand–receptor cell–cell interaction analysis, we found that neutrophils communicate more in burns in a pathway and temporal manner. Finally, we identified the correlation between zebrafish myeloid signatures and human burn severity, establishing GPR84+ neutrophils as a potential marker of early innate immune response in burns. This work builds a comparative single-cell transcriptomic framework to identify neutrophil markers of tissue damage using model organisms.