Longitudinal Immune Profiling Highlights CD4+ T cell Exhaustion Correlated with Liver Fibrosis in Schistosoma japonicum Infection

Schistosoma japonicum causes severe disease or even death and liver fibrosis is the major damage, which is caused by immunopathological injury. However, a comprehensive understanding of the immune cell changes during S. japonicum infection is lacking. Here, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing and T/B cell receptor sequencing (scRNA-seq/scTCR-seq/scBCR-seq) of the total mouse splenocytes after cercaria infection.The changes of immune cells with advancing disease stages were analyzed and the relationship with liver fibrosis was investigated. BALB/c mice were percutaneously infected with cercariae of S. japonicum. The splenocytes were isolate for single-cell RNA-sequencing and T/B cell receptor sequencing on week 0, 4, 6, 12, 16 after infection.