Fig. 1: Compared to non-smoking asthma patients, asthma patients who smoke have higher ILC3 frequencies in induced sputum.

a Gating strategy for the three subsets of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) in induced sputum. Total ILCs were gated as Lineage (CD3ε, CD11c, CD11b, CD14, CD19, CD49b, and FcεRIα)-negative and IL-7R-positive cells. ST-2 and C-kit expression was used to distinguish ILC1s (ST-2⁻C-kit⁻), ILC2s (ST-2⁺), and ILC3s (ST-2⁻C-kit⁺). b Comparison of non-smoking and smoking asthma patients and non-smoking and smoking healthy individuals in terms of total ILC frequencies in induced sputum. Comparison of non-smoking and smoking asthma patients in terms of sputum ILC1 (c), ILC2 (d), and ILC3 (e) frequencies. f The proportion of NCR⁻ (NKp44⁻) and NCR⁺ (NKp44⁺) ILC3s in the induced sputum of non-smoking and smoking asthma patients. Each dot represents individual subject. Sample size of non-smoking healthy controls, n = 12; smoking healthy controls, n = 10; non-smoking asthma patients, n = 25; smoking asthma patients, n = 37 for Fig. 1b, non-smokers, n = 25; smokers, n = 37 for Fig. 1c, e, non-smokers, n = 25; smokers, n = 38 for Fig. 1d. The non-smokers and smokers in the asthma patients or healthy individuals were compared by two-way ANOVA (Fig. 1b) or two-tailed Mann-Whitney U test (Fig. 1c–e). All data are presented as mean ± standard deviation. p < 0.05 is considered as significant.