Single-Cell Reporter Dynamics During the First Two Rounds of Rhinovirus Plaque Growth.

Secondary infected cells in rhinovirus plaques show no consistent signatures of their plaque origin beyond initial fluorescence detection, with heterogeneity surpassing detectable plaque-associated patterns.

• Why it matters: Understanding whether secondary infections retain identifiable signatures is crucial for interpreting virus spread and cell lineage effects during plaque growth, yet this remains unclear.
• What they did: The study tracked enhanced green fluorescent protein expression in 154 cells across eight rhinovirus plaques, applying feature-based, clustering, dimensionality-reduction, and sequence-alignment analyses to compare primary and secondary infections.
• The result: Findings indicate that secondary cells are mainly distinguished by the timing of first fluorescence detection, with most methods detecting no plaque-related structure beyond chance, highlighting cell heterogeneity over plaque signatures.