Fig. 3: In vitro cigarette smoke exposure elevates the CD45RO expression of ILC3s from asthma patients but not healthy individuals.

Correlation between smoking amount (PY) and (a) ILC3 frequency in induced sputum and (b) CD4⁺CD45RO⁺ILC3 frequencies in peripheral blood, as determined by Spearman r correlation test. c Comparison of non-smokers, former smokers, and current smokers in asthma patients in terms of CD4⁺CD45RO⁺ILC3s in the peripheral blood. PBMCs were treated in vitro with cigarette smoke extract (CSE) as shown schematically in (d). Healthy individuals and asthma patients were compared in terms of the CD45RO (e, g) and CD45RA (f, h) mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of ILC1s (e, f) and ILC3s (g, h) that were and were not treated with 0.1% CSE. Each dot represents individual subject. Sample size of non-smokers, n = 33; former smokers, n = 20; current smokers, n = 32 for Fig. 3c, each healthy control with or without 0.1% CSE treated, n = 10; each asthma patient with or without 0.1% CSE treated, n = 10 for Fig. 3e–h. Correlation analyses were conducted with Spearman r correlation test, dotted line represents 95% confidence interval (Fig. 3a, b). Comparison of the CD4⁺CD45RO⁺ILC3s frequencies among non-smokers, former smokers, and current smokers in asthma patients was conducted by one-way ANOVA (Fig. 3c). CSE-treated and untreated cultures were compared by multiple t tests (Fig. 3e–h). All data are presented as mean ± standard deviation. p < 0.05 is considered as significant. Figure 3d was created with Biorender.com.