Interferon Gamma signaling triggers dysplastic alveolar remodeling during respiratory viral infection

A single-cell transcriptional analysis was performed on lung epithelial cells isolated from influenza PR8 infected mice at 14 days post injury. The goal is to investigate the potential signaling pathway that regulates dysplastic KRT5 cells expansion. The left lung lobe from influenza infected mice were dissociated to single cells and subjected to fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) to select all Epcam+ cells. We found that the regulation of actin cytoskeleton, focal adhesion, Hippo signaling pathway are highly activated in dysplastic KRT5+ cells, suggesting that these signaling pathway may play a role in the expansion of dysplastic KRT5 cells in influenza infected lungs. Overall design: Influenza PR8 infected 14 days post injury wild type mice left lung lobe were dissociated to single cells and subjected to Magnetic bead sorting (MACS) to remove CD31+ and CD45+ cells. The rest of cells were subjected to fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) to select all Epcam+CD31-CD45-cells. The sorted cells were using for scRNA-seq with a 10x Genomics platform.