TY - JOUR T1 - Simultaneous mRNA and protein quantification at the single-cell level delineates trajectories of CD4<sup>+</sup> T-cell differentiation JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/706275 SP - 706275 AU - Dominik Trzupek AU - Melanie Dunstan AU - Antony J. Cutler AU - Mercede Lee AU - Leila Godfrey AU - Dominik Aschenbrenner AU - Holm H. Uhlig AU - Linda S. Wicker AU - John A. Todd AU - Ricardo C. Ferreira Y1 - 2019/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/10/03/706275.abstract N2 - The transcriptomic and proteomic characterisation of CD4+ T cells at the single-cell level has been performed traditionally by two largely exclusive types of technologies: single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) technologies and antibody-based cytometry. Here we demonstrate that the simultaneous targeted quantification of mRNA and protein expression in single-cells provides a high-resolution map of human primary CD4+ T cells, and reveals precise trajectories of Th1, Th17 and regulatory T-cell differentiation in blood and tissue. We report modest correlation between mRNA and protein in primary CD4+ T cells at the single-cell level, highlighting the value of protein expression data to characterise cell effector function. This transcriptomic and proteomic hybrid technology provides a massively-parallel, cost-effective, solution to dissect the heterogeneity of immune cell populations and to immunophenotype rare and potentially pathogenic immune subsets, and could have important clinical applications to redefine differentiation and activation of circulating and tissue-resident human immune cells. ER -