Fig. 7: IL-2 deficiency increases Th17 cell pro-inflammatory features.

A–C Naïve CD4⁺ T cells isolated from C57BL/6 mice were cultured with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 in ithe ndicated polarization conditions for three days. A Volcano plot showing differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of Anti-IL-2 + TGF-β + IL-6 compared to TGF-β + IL-6 (p < 0.05 and fold change ≥ 1.5). Differential expression analysis was performed using DESeq2. P-values were calculated with the Wald test, and the BH method controlled the FDR. B Bubble plot showing the KEGG terms (rows) of the upregulated gene enrichment pathways in the Anti-IL-2 + TGF-β + IL-6 group (also refer to Supplementary Data 4). Functional enrichment analysis was performed using clusterProfiler via over-representation analysis (ORA), which employs the hypergeometric test to calculate enrichment p-values. The BH method controlled the FDR across all tested gene sets. C Heat map showing the expression levels of pathogenic/non-pathogenic Th17-related genes (rows; Z normalized per row) that are differentially expressed in T cells cultured in the indicated conditions (columns). D–H Naïve CD4⁺ T cells isolated from OT-II TCR transgenic mice were cultured with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 in the indicated polarization conditions for three days, and were then adoptively transferred into C57BL/6 mice to establish an acute pulmonary inflammation model. D–F Representative flow cytometry plots (D) and bar graphs (E, F) showing frequencies of CD11b⁺Ly6G⁺ neutrophils in BALF and lung tissues. G, H Representative flow cytometry plots (G) and bar graph (H) showing frequencies of F4/80⁺ Macrophage in lung tissue. Sample sizes: (E, F and H) n = 3 mice per group. Data are representative of two independent experiments. Summary data are presented as mean ± SEM, one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.