Fig. 1: β-glucans from C. albicans activate the Dectin-1/JAK2/STAT3 axis to initiate PD-L1 expression in neutrophils.

a, b RNA-seq analysis of bone marrow derived-neutrophils (mu-PMNs) and human neutrophils (Hu-PMNs), which were stimulated with curdlan (25 μg/well for mu-PMNs and 50 μg/well for Hu-PMNs) or heat-inactivated C. albicans yeast (MOI = 0.1) for 4 h. a Numbers of up-regulated genes as indicated. b Heatmaps of immune response-related genes of 476 co-upregulated genes as shown in a. c The percentage of PD-L1⁺Ly-6G⁺mu-PMNs and PD-L1⁺CD66b⁺Hu-PMNs after stimulation with heat-inactivated C. albicans yeast with indicated MOIs for 12 h. d The percentage of PD-L1⁺Ly-6G⁺mu-PMNs and PD-L1⁺CD66b⁺Hu-PMNs after stimulation with curdlan (25 μg/well for mu-PMNs and 50 μg/well for Hu-PMNs) for 12 h. e The percentage of PD-L1⁺Ly-6G⁺mu-PMNs from wild-type and Clec7a^−/− mice after stimulation with yeast (MOI = 1) or curdlan (25 μg/well) for 12 h. f The percentage of PD-L1⁺Ly-6G⁺mu-PMNs from wild-type, CARD9^−/− and Syk^fl/flLyz2^Cre/+ mice stimulated with curdlan(25 μg/well) for 12 h. g Immunoblotting analysis of phosphorylation of JAK2 or STAT3 in mu-PMNs stimulated with curdlan(25 μg/well) for the indicated time. h Immunoblotting analysis of phosphorylation level of JAK2 or STAT3 in wild-type and Clec7a^−/− mu-PMNs stimulated with curdlan(25 μg/well) for the indicated time. i The percentage of PD-L1⁺Ly-6G⁺mu-PMNs in wild-type and Clec7a^−/− mouse stimulated with curdlan (25 μg/well) combined with inhibitor Stattic (1 μΜ) for 12 h. Data were presented as mean ± SD; n = 3 (c–f, i) biological independent samples. Data were analyzed by unpaired two-sided Student’s t test in d–f or one-way ANOVA adjusted for multiple comparisons in c, i. Source data are provided as a Source data file.