Single-cell atlases of Aedes aegypti midgut and fat body reveal cellular and metabolic dynamics after a blood-meal
Aedes aegypti mosquito, vector for several viral diseases, undergoes significant physiological changes after a blood meal. Through single-cell RNA sequencing and metabolomics, we unveiled dynamic cellular composition and metabolic adaptations within abdominal midgut and fat body tissues. We revealed high cell diversity, specialized in digestion, metabolism, immunity, and reproduction. While the midgut primarily comprises enterocytes, enteroendocrine, cardia and intestinal stem cells, the fat body consists of not only trophocytes and oenocytes, but also a substantial population of hemocytes and fat body-yolk cells (FYC). The fat body, exhibiting a more complex metabolomic profile than the midgut, played a central role in immune and metabolic gene expression, particularly within trophocytes and FYCs. Additionally, insect-specific viruses were detected at the single-cell level, mainly in the midgut at later stages post-blood meal. These findings offer new vector control strategies by targeting specific abdominal cell populations and metabolic pathways involved after a blood meal. Overall design: Midgut and fat body cells were isolated from Aedes aegypti mosquitoes at 2 and 7 days post-blood meal. For each time point, seven midguts and seven fat bodies were subjected to a cold dissociation method, generating two independent single-cell suspensions for scRNAseq analyses. The cells were then processed for single-cell RNA sequencing using the 10X Chromium Next GEM Single Cell 5' Kit v2 dual index. Libraries were sequenced by Macrogen on a NovaSeq 6000 platform (Illumina).