Fig. 5: Spatial transcriptome analysis of salivary glands reveals enrichment of leukocyte clusters across SjD subtypes and differential pathways by autoantibody status. | Nature Communications

Fig. 5: Spatial transcriptome analysis of salivary glands reveals enrichment of leukocyte clusters across SjD subtypes and differential pathways by autoantibody status.

From: Comparative single-cell and spatial profiling of anti-SSA-positive and anti-centromere-positive Sjögren’s disease reveals common and distinct immune activation and fibroblast-mediated inflammation

Fig. 5

a Schema showing the study design for spatial transcriptome analysis (10X Visium). Created in BioRender. Inamo, J. (2025) https://BioRender.com/mu09iuk. b Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stained sections of representative samples used for spatial transcriptome analysis. Distribution of spatial clusters within salivary gland tissues on histological sections (c) and UMAP (d). Colors represent 19 unique spatial clusters. e Violin plots displaying the expression levels of key markers across the spatial clusters. f Neighborhood graph of spatial regions using differential abundance testing. Nodes represent neighborhoods from the spatial clusters. Colors indicate the log2-fold change (logFC) between SjD overall and Sicca. Neighborhoods that increased in patients with SjD are shown in red. g Beeswarm plot showing the distribution of logFC in neighborhoods in different spatial clusters comparing the abundance between SjD overall and Sicca. Significant changes (false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05) are highlighted, indicating enriched in all SjD. h Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) comparing autoantibody status. Only selected pathways with significance (FDR < 0.05) in spot cluster 4 are shown. The size of the dots represents the set size of genes involved, and the color intensity indicates the normalized enrichment score (NES).

Back to article page