ChemPerturb-seq screen identifies a small molecule cocktail enhancing human beta cell survival after subcutaneous transplantation

Traditional chemical screens have focused on a single assay per screen, making them labor intensive and costly. Here, we combined a chemical screen with single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to perform Chemical Perturb-seq (ChemPerturb-seq), enabling a systematic analysis of the molecular changes of human beta cells upon individual small molecule treatments. Using this platform, we performed an in vivo barcoded screen and discovered a small molecule cocktail, including beta-lipotropin 61-91, insulin growth factor-1, and prostaglandin E2, with which preconditioning human beta cells and primary islets significantly enhanced function and survival when transplanted subcutaneously to female, but not to male, mice. We identified two additional molecules, serotonin and histamine, that promote islet function when transplanted subcutaneously to male mice using ChemPerturb-seq. Such small molecule cocktails could be applied to improve the current FDA-approved islet transplantation procedure. Finally, we developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered website, ChemPerturbDB, which provides user-friendly open access analysis of the extensive ChemPerturb-seq dataset.