Dual RNA-seq on pneumococcal infection to zebrafish embryo model

Zebrafish embryo has been emerging as an interesting model of infection due to their fecundity, transparency and availability of genetic tools. Streptococcus pneumoniae, the pneumococcus, is the main etiological agent of pneumonia, sepsis and meningitis. The bacteria expresses a very important virulence factor, pneumolysin able to form pores on cholesterol-based membranes and to activate innate immune system. Here, we exploited the recently described dual RNA-seq to simultaneously measure genome-wide expression of host and pathogen eight hours into infection. Functional enrichment analysis showed certain pathways such as autophagy and apoptosis being activated in the host while stress responses including pneumococcal competence. The study is the first to describe dual RNA-seq application in whole organism sequencing in infection model. Six samples are analysed, categorized into two conditions: infection with ply mutant and complemented strain