posted on 2023-10-16, 09:53authored bySimon Butterworth, Kristina Kordova, Sambamurthy Chandrasekaran, Kaitlin K Thomas, Francesca Torelli, Eloise J Lockyer, Amelia Edwards, Robert Goldstone, Anita A Koshy, Moritz Treeck
Intracellular pathogens and other endosymbionts reprogram host cell transcription to suppress immune responses and recalibrate biosynthetic pathways. This reprogramming is critical in determining the outcome of infection or colonization. We combine pooled CRISPR knockout screening with dual host-microbe single-cell RNA sequencing, a method we term dual perturb-seq, to identify the molecular mediators of these transcriptional interactions. Applying dual perturb-seq to the intracellular pathogen Toxoplasma gondii, we are able to identify previously uncharacterized effector proteins and directly infer their function from the transcriptomic data. We show that TgGRA59 contributes to the export of other effector proteins from the parasite into the host cell and identify an effector, TgSOS1, that is necessary for sustained host STAT6 signaling and thereby contributes to parasite immune evasion and persistence. Together, this work demonstrates a tool that can be broadly adapted to interrogate host-microbe transcriptional interactions and reveal mechanisms of infection and immune evasion.
Funding
Crick (Grant ID: CC2132, Grant title: Treeck CC2132)
Crick (Grant ID: 10001, Grant title: STP Advanced Sequencing)
Wellcome Trust (Grant ID: 23192/Z/21/Z, Grant title: WT 23192/Z/21/Z)