Seasonal H1N1 influenza A virus preferentially infects a pre-existing ciliogenesis-primed secretory cell state

Seasonal H1N1 influenza A virus A/Hawaii/70/2019 preferentially infects a transcriptionally distinct secretory-cell subpopulation enriched for cilium-related gene programs in primary human bronchial cultures.

• Why it matters: It remains unclear whether all cells within a given airway epithelial cell type are equally susceptible to influenza, or whether infection tracks specific epithelial differentiation states.
• What they did: Using single-cell RNA sequencing of primary human bronchial epithelial cultures from three donors, the authors compared infected versus mock-treated cells and tested whether cilium-related enrichment persisted after excluding infection-linked differential genes.
• The result: At 6 hours post-infection, infected secretory cells did not show a significant rise in ciliogenesis scores versus mock, supporting preferential infection of ciliogenesis-primed secretory states rather than early activation of canonical ciliogenesis.

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