Encounters between host cells and intracellular bacterial pathogens lead to complex phenotypes that determine the outcome of infection. Single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) are increasingly used to study the host factors underlying diverse cellular phenotypes. But current approaches do not permit the simultaneous unbiased study of both host and bacterial factors during infection. Here, we developed scPAIR-seq, an approach to analyze both host and pathogen factors during infection by combining multiplex-tagged mutant bacterial library with scRNA-seq to identify mutant-specific changes in host transcriptomes. We applied scPAIR-seq to macrophages infected with a library of Salmonella Typhimurium secretion system effector mutants. We developed a pipeline to independently analyze redundancy between effectors and mutant-specific unique fingerprints, and mapped the global virulence network of each individual effector by its impact on host immune pathways. ScPAIR-seq is a powerful tool to untangle bacterial virulence strategies and their complex interplay with host defense strategies that drive infection outcome.
Encounters between host cells and intracellular bacterial pathogens lead to complex phenotypes that determine the outcome of infection. Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is increasingly used to study the host factors underlying diverse cellular phenotypes but has limited capacity to analyze the role of bacterial factors. Here, we developed scPAIR-seq, a single-cell approach to analyze infection with a pooled library of multiplex-tagged, barcoded bacterial mutants. Infected host cells and barcodes of intracellular bacterial mutants are both captured by scRNA-seq to functionally analyze mutant-dependent changes in host transcriptomes. We applied scPAIR-seq to macrophages infected with a library of
Salmonella
Typhimurium secretion system effector mutants. We analyzed redundancy between effectors and mutant-specific unique fingerprints and mapped the global virulence network of each individual effector by its impact on host immune pathways. ScPAIR-seq is a powerful tool to untangle bacterial virulence strategies and their complex interplay with host defense strategies that drive infection outcome.
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