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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 1, 2025

Tissue Collection of Bats for -Omics Analyses and Primary Cell Culture

Tissue Collection of Bats for -Omics Analyses and Primary Cell Culture

Published on: October 23, 2019

Single-cell and Spatial Transcriptomics Illuminate Bat Immunity and Barrier Tissue Evolution.

Roy Levinger¹, Dafna Tussia-Cohen¹, Sivan Friedman¹

¹Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, George S Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.

Molecular Biology and Evolution

|January 21, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Egyptian fruit bats show unique complement system gene expression, potentially explaining their resistance to pathogens. This contrasts with similar interferon responses seen in mice, highlighting distinct immune evolution in bats.

Keywords:

bats comparative transcriptomics evolution of immune defenses single-cell transcriptomics tissue evolution

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Single-cell Quantitation of mRNA and Surface Protein Expression in Simian Immunodeficiency Virus-infected CD4+ T Cells Isolated from Rhesus macaques

Published on: September 25, 2018

Area of Science:

Comparative immunology
Evolutionary biology
Infectious disease resistance

Background:

Bats exhibit diverse pathogen defense mechanisms, including disease resistance and tolerance.
While disease tolerance is understood in Egyptian fruit bats, resistance mechanisms remain unclear.
Elevated innate immune gene expression is a potential driver of resistance in other species.

Purpose of the Study:

Investigate transcriptional patterns related to immune resistance in Egyptian fruit bats.
Compare gene expression in bat tissues (gut, lung, blood) with mouse and human models.
Identify unique immune system adaptations in bats.

Main Methods:

Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics of Egyptian fruit bat gut, lung, and blood cells.
Comparative analysis of gene expression across bat, mouse, and human.
Genomic analysis of interferon and complement system genes.
Functional assays of bat complement system activity.

Main Results:

Interferon expression and induction in bats are similar to mice, despite bat-specific genomic changes.
Central complement system genes show unique, high expression in bat lung and gut epithelium.
This unique complement expression is concentrated in bat gut crypts, regions with conserved developmental programs.
Bat complement system genes evolve rapidly and exhibit strong hemolytic activity.

Conclusions:

Bats possess a distinct transcriptional profile for the complement system, differing significantly from mice and humans.
This unique complement system divergence may contribute to the observed resistance of bats to pathogens.
The study underscores the complex evolutionary adaptations of bat immunity.