Fig. 5: Characterization of kidney-resident T and NK cells. | Nature Communications

Fig. 5: Characterization of kidney-resident T and NK cells.

From: Single-cell profiling of healthy human kidney reveals features of sex-based transcriptional programs and tissue-specific immunity

Fig. 5

a NK cells (p = 0.0025, t = 3.998, df=10) and NKT cells (p = 0.0327, t = 2.476, df=10) are proportionally enriched in kidney relative to blood, while T cell (p = 0.379, t = 0.918, df=10) abundance is unchanged. (n = 6) (b) Within the kidney T cell population, there is an enrichment of CD8+ T cells (p = 0.0060, t = 3.327, df=12) and a reduction in CD4 + T cell abundance (p = 0.0025, t = 3.815, df=12) with no change in TCRγδ+ T cells (p = 0.2158, u = 14) relative to blood. (n = 6) (c) Kidney T cells are predominantly antigen-experienced, marked by expression of CD45RO, while NK cells express minimal CD45RO. d Within kidney memory CD4+ T cells, there is an enrichment in the Th1/17 subpopulation (CXCR3+CCR6+) (p = 0.0238, u = 0) and a reduction in Th2 subpopulation (CRTh2+) abundance (p = 0.0098, t = 3.513, df=7) relative to blood while Th1 (CXCR3+) (p = 0.3810, u = 5) and Th17 (CCR6+) (p = 0.5476, u = 6) proportions were unchanged. (n = 3) (e) T cells expressing Granzyme K do not co-express perforin, indicating that they are a distinct T cell subset from Granzyme B+ Perforin+ cytotoxic T cells. f Violin plots showing differential gene expression of select markers in kidney T cells and NK cells relative to blood. g Surface levels of CD29 (p = 0.0061, t = 3.869, df=7), CD49d (p = 0.0027, t = 4.519, df=7) and CD69 (p = 0.0203, t = 2.756, df=10) were higher on kidney T cells relative to blood as measured by flow cytometry, while CXCR4 (p = 0.5887, u = 14) was not (n = 6). h Surface CD69 (p = 0.0427, t = 2.321, df=10) was higher on kidney NK cells relative to blood while CD29 (p = 0.6899, t = 0.4159, df=7), CD49d (p = 0.9040, t = 0.1250, df=7), and CXCR4 (p = 0.9326, t = 0.0868, df=10) were not. (n = 6) (i) CXCR6 abundance was higher at the protein level on both T cells (p = 0.0086, t = 3.258, df=10) (n = 6) and NK cells (p = 0.0364, t = 2.414, df=10) (n = 6) relative to blood. (j) Histograms showing no difference in CXCR4, increased CD69 and increased CXCR6 protein abundance in kidney T cells relative to blood. Group-to-group differences were assessed using two-tailed unpaired T tests for variables following a normal distribution, and Mann-Whitney tests for variables with a non-parametric distribution. *p < 0.05;**p < 0.01;***p < 0.001;****p < 0.0001. PBMC Peripheral blood mononuclear cells, NK Natural Killer cell, NKT Natural Killer T cells. Gray = PBMCs, Blue = Kidney. Source data for all panels provided as a source data file.

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