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Somatic and direct reprogramming of bat cells provide new cellular substrates for studying host-pathogen interactions
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Edité par CCSD -
International audience. Bats represent the second group of mammals after rodents, but are also and above all the asymptomatic reservoir of many zoonotic viruses, some highly pathogenic. Better understanding how bats control infection mechanisms remains delicate and requires new relevant cellular models. Access to embryos and the cells that would be derived from them remains improbable and the approach of somatic reprogramming and direct reprogramming makes it possible to circumvent this difficulty and to develop new substrates for studying host-pathogen interactions.Using biopsies obtained from several bat species, both Yinpterochiroptera (or Pteropodiformes) and Yangochiroptera, (or Vespertilioniformes), we succeeded in obtaining i) reprogrammed stem cells displaying the markers of pluripotent stem cells and some of their properties and ii) differentiated cells in neural and epithelial pathways by direct reprogramming approaches. The conditions and kinetics, the combinations used and the media allowing them to be obtained vary according to the species. The first molecular characterizations confirm both the stem cell and neural and epithelial character of these cells in the case of direct reprogramming.These cells are now used in tests of infection and permissivity to different viruses and open the way for the study of the innate immune response during the host cell-virus interaction in bats, such a particular animal species.