Description

Individuals are different and thereby respond differently to drugs or infections. For example, while some people may be naturally resistant to specific viral infections, others may control it efficiently, or in contrast, may rapidly develop severe symptoms of the disease eventually leading to death. In the past two decades, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) investigated the role of specific genetic variations in this variable susceptibility to viral infections, and lead to the identification of genes contributing to this individual heterogeneity. Thus, focusing on the individual and his/her specific response allows a better understanding of viral pathogenesis and an opportunity to offer in fine a personalized treatment.
Similarly, single-cell approaches focus at the level of the individual cell, aiming at exploring cell heterogeneity and investigating cell variability. Indeed, individual cells also display a breadth of responses toward viral infections, with cells resistant or highly permissive to viral replication, and which cannot be solely explained by the genetic background. Indeed, the cell cycle, the cell state, the cell activity can all shape the cell composition - at the transcriptome (miRNA, lncRNA) and proteome levels - and thus impact its response to viral infection. Understanding this cellular diversity should help uncover new virus-host interactions, potentially identifying genes promoting or restricting viral replication, and thereby offering novel targets for therapeutic interventions.
The main goal of this Research Topic is to bring together the latest advances in understanding virus replication, virus-host interactions, and innate immunity thanks to the use of single-cell technologies. For this purpose, we encourage reviews on specific viruses to which single-cell technologies have been applied. This Research Topic also encourages original research articles, protocols, and reviews on the following topics: new single-cell technologies, comparison of single-cell approaches, single-cell methods applied to virology.