Disclosed herein are methods of treating or inhibiting inflammation in a subject by administering an anti-inflammatory protein to the subject. In some embodiments, the protein has at least 80% sequence identity to the amino acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 1 or fragments thereof. Also disclosed are methods of identifying anti-inflammatory compounds by determining the effect of test compounds on inflammation in zebrafish gut. In some embodiments, germ-free zebrafish or zebrafish inoculated with a single defined bacterial strain are contacted with one or more test compounds and a marker of inflammation in the gut is measured and compared to a control. Recombinant vectors including a nucleic acid encoding the anti-inflammatory protein (such as a nucleic acid encoding a protein with at least 80% sequence identity to SEQ ID NO: 1 or fragments thereof) operably linked to a heterologous promoter are also disclosed.
