Multi-modal in situ profiling of human cells using the AVITI24 platform characterizes single-cell responses to acute stress

In A549 cells, five acute stressors altered the same targets in the same direction within 15 min, with differences mainly in magnitude and a modest increase in JNK phosphorylation.

• Why it matters: Early stress responses are hard to resolve because bulk averaging and synchronization can mask how cell identity, neighbors, and cell-cycle state shape minute-scale programs.
• What they did: Using the AVITI24 platform, the team profiled 1.18 million single cells with 338 transcripts, 48 proteins/phosphoproteins, and six stains after H2O2 in four human cell lines and after TNF-, cadmium, dithiothreitol, or lipopolysaccharide in A549 cells.
• The result: By 30 min of H2O2, immediate-early genes (FOS, JUN, DDIT3, DUSP1, NR4A1) rose most strongly in HCT116 and A549 across the whole population, and cell-cycle ordering showed 106 cycle-associated transcripts with larger differences by cell line than by phase.

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