Fig. 5: NK/ILC1ie and ILC1 dominate red pulp of spleen, accompagnied by Th1. Th17 is the dominant population in white pulp.

Topographic distribution of NK/ILC1ie (dark blue), ILC1 (orange), ILC2 (light blue), and ILC3 (pink) in spleen (n = 8 independent biological samples, 1 mIF staining batch). A H&E overview of the spleen with corresponding ILCs distribution map (detailed in caption). Scale bar: 2 mm. B Classic mIF staining of CD20 (aqua), TCRαδ (green), EOMES (orange), TBX21 (red) and IL-7Rα (pink). DAPI nuclear counterstain (DAPI, blue). Scale bar: 250 µm. B1–3. Detailed image of mIF in “B”, at white pulp (hashtag)/red pulp interface (dashed line) presenting CD20 (aqua), TCRαδ (green) and IL-7Rα (pink) in “B1”, with additional TBX21 (red) in “B2” and EOMES (orange) in “B3”. ILC1 (TBX21⁺/EOMES⁻) indicated by white arrows and ILC1 (TBX21⁺/EOMES⁺) indicated by white triangles. Scale bar: 20 µm. C Split-violin plots representing the ILC and T helper phenotype densities (number/mm²) in white (left) and red pulp (right) of the spleen (classic mIF panel). D Infiltration analysis plot with interface (InF) between white (IN) and red pulp (OUT) for IL-7Rα⁺ ILC1 (orange), ILC2 (light blue), and ILC3 (pink) in spleen. E Spatial Transcriptomics (GEO Accession N° GSE228056) with mapping of ILCs and NK signatures in reactive spleen. Box-plots within Violin Plots, created using Seaborn in Python, present the median value (white dot, 50th percentile) in between the first quartile (the middle value between “minimum non-outlier” and median (marked as Q1, portrays the 25th percentile) and third quartile (the middle value between “maximum non-outlier” and median (marked as Q3, portrays the 75th percentile)). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.