Salmonella typhimurium targets distal colonocytes to trigger infection [Spatial Transcriptomics]

To quantify the extent of Salmonella infection in different large intestine segments, we performed spatial transcriptomics to analyse which clusters of cell populations were most infected by Salmonella and determined susceptibility in the distal colonocyte of mice. To further identify that Salmonella infection-associated genes and pathways were were both significantly expressed in distal intestinal segments following Salmonella infection, we used spatial transcriptomics data to delineate the different spots on a cell-by-cell basis for subsequent cellular annotation. Our analyses reveal the susceptibility of DCC upon Salmonella infestation. Overall design: Mouse models of colonic tissues from Salmonella-infected BALB/c mice across four time points (d0, d1, d3, d5) were analysed using spatial transcriptomics