Fig. 7: Plasticity of CD4⁺ regulatory T (Treg) cells in first and second pregnancies.

a Experimental setup: age-matched Fate mice were allogenically mated to Balb/c males once or twice, respectively. b–g Flow cytometric analysis of uterus-draining lymph node harvested on different gestational days (gd) was performed to assess frequency of (b) exIL-17 cells in CD4 T cells (virgin: n = 4, gd 7.5: n = 8 (1^st) and 10 (2^nd), gd 15.5: n = 10 (1^st) and 11 (2^nd)) with representative dot plots illustrating c, top: current and former IL-17 producing cells and c, bottom: the acquired phenotype of exIL-17 cells ex-vivo. d Further, CD4⁺ Treg cell frequencies were determined (gd 7.5: p = 0.000216, gd 15.5: p = 0.00113) along with (e) the frequency of exIL-17 cells within the CD4 Treg population (gd 7.5: p = 0.026, gd 15.5: p = 0.035) and (f) Type 1 regulatory T (Tr1) cell frequency (gd 7.5: p = 0.000413) in association with (g) the frequency of exIL-17 cells within the Tr1 cell compartment. Data for uterine tissue samples are presented in Supplementary Fig. 7. Additional data regarding independent confirmation of prenatal stress-induced changes in Fate mice are provided in Supplementary Fig. 8. Data are presented as violin plots with individual points, median and quartiles, and the statistical significance between first and second pregnancy was calculated using Multiple unpaired t-tests (* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.