Acute murine cytomegalovirus infection boosts cell-type specific response and lipid metabolism changes in infant mice liver

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection in infants cause severe diseases, such as neonatal hepatitis. However, the single-cell dimensional description of the immune cell alteration during the first virus exposure process in infants, remains poorly understood. The hepatocytes play an essential role in metabolic homeostasis and detoxification. The Concomitant Effects of CMV infection on liver lipid metabolism in infants are still unclear. Here, using single-cell RNA-sequencing, we found MCMV can infect most cell types of infant mice liver, changing the number of immune cells. MCMV infection increases proliferating CD8 effector T cells and a subset of Nos2+ monocytes, which may play important roles in the early anti-viral process. Furthermore, MCMV infection subvert the protein expression profile of lipid metabolism in hepatocytes. Overall, our data provide insights as to how the immune system response to MCMV infection during the early stage of infection, and the impact of infection on lipid metabolism in infant mice hepatocytes. Infant mice were infected by MCMV and livers were subjected to scRNA-seq.