Fig. 5: Altered proteome and distinct mitochondria in naïve Ant2^-/- CD8⁺ T cells.

A–D Mass-spectrometry analysis was performed on protein extracts from naïve (CD44⁻) CD8⁺ T cells derived from WT or Ant2^−/− OT-I mice (WT: n = 4, Ant2^−/−: n = 5). A Volcano plot displaying differentially expressed proteins (relative peptide abundances). The negative logarithm of statistical significance (p value) is plotted against the fold change magnitude. Prior to imputation from a normal distribution, Label-Free Quantitation (LFQ) levels were log₂-transformed. Red dots represent mitochondrial-associated proteins sourced from MitoCarta2.0. B Principal component analysis comparing the log₂-transformed data of all mitochondrial-associated proteins. The first two principal components, which capture the highest variance in the data, are depicted. Heatmaps illustrating differentially expressed proteins associated with oxidative phosphorylation and tricarboxylic acid cycle (C), as well as reactive oxygen species regulation and glutathione synthesis (D). The heatmaps were generated based on the log₂ fold change values of individual genes between the two compared samples. The color gradient ranges from red, indicating a significant fold change, to blue, representing a minor fold change. Statistical method: Two-tailed multiple t-tests, FDR < 0.05, S0 < 0.1 (A), or Benjamini-Hochberg method (FDR < 0.05) (B), or Student’s t test analysis conducted on log₂-transformed data after the Z-score normalization step (C, D). Data are represented as mean ± S.D. n refers to the number of biologically independent samples. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.