Fig. 3: Clonally-expanded CD8⁺ memory T cells and related TCR features in MDA5⁺ DM patients.

a t-SNE plots showing seven CD8⁺ T cell clusters, color-coded according to the cell subset (upper) or group (lower). b Box plots showing the proportions of scCD8T4-GZMK⁺GZMB⁺ Tm, scCD8T8-ISG, and scCD8T7-pTm cells from HD (n = 4), Ctrl IIM (n = 5), MDA5⁺ DM-Act (n = 7) and MDA5⁺ DM-Rem (n = 3) groups. c Representative flow cytometric plots showing the frequency of Ki67⁺ CD8⁺ T cells from indicated groups (upper). Scatter plots showing the accumulated data for Ki67⁺%CD8⁺ T cells from indicated groups (bottom). Data are presented as mean ± SD and the error bars denote SD (bottom left panel). d t-SNE plot showing 446 CD4⁺ T cells and 7397 CD8⁺ T cells with clonal expansion (clonotype >1), color-coded by the clonal expansion levels.e Box plots showing TCR clonality (upper) and TCR diversity (lower) in different CD8⁺ T cell clusters (n = 5666 cells; 1704 cells; 1285 cells; 542 cells; 4569 cells; 1175 cells; 519 cells; from left to right) across four groups. f Triangle heatmap showing the overlap of expanded TCR clonotypes across all CD8⁺ T cell clusters in MDA5⁺ DM-Act patients. Data are aggregated from each patient within the group. Numbers indicate the normalized Jaccard index of shared expanded TCR clonotypes for each cluster pair. g Inferred TRBV family usage preference in the CD8⁺ Tm cells of MDA5⁺ DM-Act patients compared with those from the HD (x-axis) or Ctrl IIM (y-axis) groups. Log2 (fold change) values are used to draw the plot, with each point sized by the TRBV usage in MDA5⁺ DM-Act patients and color-coded by the group specificity. h Box plots showing the comparisons of the frequencies of TRBV7-9, TRBV20-1, TRBV28, and TRBV30 in CD8⁺ Tm cells between active and remitted MDA5⁺ DM patients. Box plot center, box and whiskers correspond to median, IQR and 1.5 × IQR, respectively (b, e, h). Statistical significance is calculated by the two-tailed Mann–Whitney test (b, c, e) and Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test (c). *, p < 0.05. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.