Single-cell RNA sequencing of the spleen reveals differences in the mechanisms of resistance to bacterial infection between different chicken breeds

Bacterial infections remain an important cause of morbidity in poultry production. The molecular characteristics and dynamic changes in immune cell populations after bacterial infection have yet to be fully understood. Beijing-You chicken and Cobb broiler, two broiler breeds with different disease resistance, were infected with Salmonella typhimurium, and inflammation models were constructed. We characterized chicken spleen CD45+ immune cells by single-cell RNA sequencing. At 28 days old, 3 Cobb chicks and 1 Beijing-you chicks were randomly chosen and challenged orally with 1 mL PBS containing 1.83 × 1011 CFU Salmonella typhimurium (ST), 3 Cobb chicks and 3 Beijing-you chicks were randomly given orally with 1mL PBS. At 3 days post-infection (dpi), we collected the splenic tissues and prepared the single-cell suspensions. Collected CD45+ cells by flow cytometry and analyzed using scRNAseq.