single-cell RNA-seq of of dermal fibroblasts

Dermal fibroblasts from human, rhesus macaque, mouse and rat, stimulated with dsRNA (poly I:C) in a time course of 0,2,4 and 8 hours, profiled using the Smart-seq2 protocol. The innate immune response - the expression programme that is initiated once a pathogen is sensed - is known to be variable among responding cells, as well as to rapidly evolve in the course of mammal evolution. To study the transcriptional divergence and cell-to-cell variability of this response, we stimulated dermal fibroblast cells from two primates (human and macaque) and two rodents (mouse and rat) with dsRNA - a mimic of viral RNA that elicits a rapid innate immune response. Subsequently, we profiled the response using bulk RNA-seq, scRNA-seq and ChIP-seq across the four species and across different time points.