Host–pathogen interactions are often heterogeneous involving individual encounters between host and pathogen cells with diverse molecular mechanisms, response networks, and diverging outcomes. Single-cell reporters can identify the various types of interactions and participating pathogen subsets, help to unravel underlying molecular mechanism, and determine individual outcomes and their impact on disease progression. In this review, we discuss reporters-based on fluorescent proteins. We present different types of reporters and their experimental advantages and challenges, and describe how different strategies can interrogate exposure to antimicrobial host mechanism, pathogen response, inflicted damage, and impact on pathogen fitness at the single-cell level. We find many gaps in available tools but also exciting avenues to address these issues.

宿主-病原体相互作用通常是异质的，涉及宿主和病原体细胞之间的个体接触，具有不同的分子机制、反应网络和不同的结果。单细胞报告基因可以识别各种类型的相互作用和参与的病原体亚群，有助于揭示潜在的分子机制，并确定个体结果及其对疾病进展的影响。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了基于荧光蛋白的记者。我们介绍了不同类型的记者及其实验优势和挑战，并描述了不同的策略如何在单细胞水平上询问接触抗菌宿主机制、病原体反应、造成的损害以及对病原体适应性的影响。我们发现可用工具存在许多差距，但也发现了解决这些问题的令人兴奋的途径。