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. 2023 Jun 15;11(3):e0087323.
doi: 10.1128/spectrum.00873-23. Epub 2023 May 8.

Single-Cell, High-Content Microscopy Analysis of BK Polyomavirus Infection

Affiliations

Single-Cell, High-Content Microscopy Analysis of BK Polyomavirus Infection

Megan C Procario et al. Microbiol Spectr. .

Abstract

By adulthood, the majority of the population is persistently infected with BK polyomavirus (BKPyV). Only a subset of the population, generally transplant recipients on immunosuppressive drugs, will experience disease from BKPyV, but those who do have few treatment options and, frequently, poor outcomes, because to date there are no effective antivirals to treat or approved vaccines to prevent BKPyV. Most studies of BKPyV have been performed on bulk populations of cells, and the dynamics of infection at single-cell resolution have not been explored. As a result, much of our knowledge is based upon the assumption that all cells within a greater population are behaving the same way with respect to infection. The present study examines BKPyV infection on a single-cell level using high-content microscopy to measure and analyze the viral protein large T antigen (TAg), promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML), DNA, and nuclear morphological features. We observed significant heterogeneity among infected cells, within and across time points. We found that the levels of TAg within individual cells did not necessarily increase with time and that cells with the same TAg levels varied in other ways. Overall, high-content, single-cell microscopy is a novel approach to studying BKPyV that enables experimental insight into the heterogenous nature of the infection. IMPORTANCE BK polyomavirus (BKPyV) is a human pathogen that infects nearly everyone by adulthood and persists throughout a person's life. Only people with significant immune suppression develop disease from the virus, however. Until recently the only practical means of studying many viral infections was to infect a group of cells in the laboratory and measure the outcomes in that group. However, interpreting these bulk population experiments requires the assumption that infection influences all cells within a group similarly. This assumption has not held for multiple viruses tested so far. Our study establishes a novel single-cell microscopy assay for BKPyV infection. Using this assay, we discovered differences among individual infected cells that have not been apparent in bulk population studies. The knowledge gained in this study and the potential for future use demonstrate the power of this assay as a tool for understanding the biology of BKPyV.

Keywords: BKPyV; high-content microscopy; polyomavirus; single-cell infection.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIG 1
FIG 1
Assay overview and imaging examples. (A) Timeline illustrating the experimental protocol, the details of which can be found in Materials and Methods. (B and C) Representative images of cells at 2 days postinfection. The first panel indicates the nuclei as identified using the CellPose software, pseudocolored arbitrarily to distinguish individual objects. The next three panels are the individual channels, while the final panel is pseudocolored (DNA, blue; TAg, green; PML, magenta) and merged. (B) Cells from a mock-infected well. Nuclei are outlined in the TAg panel due to lack of visible signal. (C) Cells from a BKPyV-infected well.
FIG 2
FIG 2
Single-cell microscopy as a method for studying BKPyV infection. (A) Histograms depicting the DNA contents of mock-infected (pink) and TAg-positive (blue) cells at the three time points. (B) As described for panel A but depicting the quantities of PML-NBs per nucleus in mock-infected (pink) and TAg-positive (blue) cells. (C) Percentages of TAg-positive cells out of total populations of cells at the indicated time points. (D) Histograms of only TAg-positive cells, depicting the distributions of cells with different levels of TAg at 1, 2, and 3 days postinfection. Wilcoxon one-way analysis: ***, P < 0.0001.
FIG 3
FIG 3
High DNA content, not time postinfection, distinguishes cells expressing the highest levels of TAg. (A) UMAP clusters from the global population were assigned a color and labeled with letters. (B) Mock-infected cells are highlighted in dark gray. (C) BKPyV-infected cells are highlighted in dark gray. (D) TAg-positive cells are highlighted in dark gray. (E) Cells are colored according to day postinfection. Blue, 1 dpi; red, 2 dpi; green, 3 dpi. (F) Montages of representative nuclei from the five global clusters of cells. Channels and images were normalized to allow comparison. Channel colors: TAg, green; PML, red; DNA, blue. Tile size is 150 pixels (px), or ~24.5 μm.
FIG 4
FIG 4
Appearance of cells with areas of mutual DNA/TAg exclusion. A representative nucleus was selected from each time point, and ImageJ software was used to plot the DNA and TAg intensities. Merged images of the two channels are shown. DNA, blue; TAg, green.
FIG 5
FIG 5
TAg+ cells form clusters defined by features other than time point and TAg level. (A) Clusters were identified from TAg-positive cells and labeled with numbers and different colors than the global clusters. (B) Individual cells’ time points were overlaid onto the positive UMAP. Blue, 1 dpi; red, 2 dpi; green, 3 dpi. (C) Positive UMAP with cluster colors from global UMAP overlaid.
FIG 6
FIG 6
Unique subpopulations exist among cells within the same TAg expression levels. (A to C) Violin plots of per-nucleus levels of TAg (A), DNA (B), and PML (C) in TAg-positive cells. (D) Montages of randomly selected TAg-stained nuclei from the low-TAg (clusters 1 to 3) and high-TAg (clusters 7 and 8) groups of cells. Images were normalized to allow comparison across groups. Tile size is 150 px (~24.5 μm). Kruskal-Wallis multiple-comparison test: ****, P < 0.0001; *, P < 0.05.
FIG 7
FIG 7
TAg correlation analyses. (A) Bivariate analysis to assess the correlation of DNA and TAg levels at each day postinfection and in the total population. R2 values are shown. (B) Distribution of TAg levels in cells in different phases of the cell cycle. (C) Bivariate analysis to assess the correlation of PML and TAg levels at each day postinfection and in the total population. R2 values are shown.
FIG 8
FIG 8
PML-NB characteristics account for differences between TAg expression groups. (A and B) Violin plots of per-nucleus values for nuclear area (A) and number of PML-NBs per nucleus (B) in TAg-positive cells. (C) Montages of randomly selected nuclei from the low-TAg (clusters 1 to 3) and high-TAg (clusters 7 and 8) groups of cells. Channels and images were normalized to allow comparison across groups. Channel colors: PML, red; DNA, blue. (D and E) Violin plots of PML-NB levels per nucleus for TAg-positive cells: average PML-NB area per nucleus (D); average PML intensity per NB (E). Tile size is 150 px (~24.5 μm). Kruskal-Wallis multiple-comparison test: ****, P < 0.0001; ***, P < 0.001; **, P < 0.01; *, P < 0.05.

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