Fig. 7: Cytotoxic NK cells aberrantly target TECs.
From: Damage-induced IL-18 stimulates thymic NK cells limiting endogenous tissue regeneration
a, Normalized expression of the MHC-I genes H2-D1, H2-K1 and B2m following SL-TBI, taken from the scRNAseq dataset described in Fig. 2a. Red box highlights epithelial populations. b, Thymuses from female 1- to 2-month-old C57BL/6 mice were collected at baseline (n = 4) or 3 days after SL-TBI (n = 5). Concatenated flow cytometry plots showing H-2Kb expression in stromal subsets (gating and phenotypes are provided in Extended Data Fig. 3) and the CD45+ population (n = 10) are presented. c, Thymuses from female 1- to 2-month-old C57BL/6 mice were collected at baseline or 3 days after SL-TBI. Concatenated flow cytometry plots and quantification of RAE-1 expression in stromal subsets (n = 5 per group) are shown. d, Female 1- to 2-month-old C57BL/6 mice were exposed to SL-TBI, and thymuses were collected 3 days later and enriched for nonhematopoietic stromal cells, which were cultured with or without poly(I:C)-stimulated NK cells. The expression of Annexin V (AnnV) and 7-aminoactinomycin D (7-AAD) in CD45−EpCAM+MHC-II+Ly51+ cTECs and CD45−EpCAM+MHC-II+UEA-1+ mTECs was measured 5 h after coculture (n = 4 per group). e, Female 1- to 2-month-old C57BL/6 WT (n = 14) or Il18r1−/− (n = 15) mice were exposed to SL-TBI. The expression of Annexin V and 7-AAD in CD45−EpCAM+MHC-II+Ly51+ cTECs, CD45−EpCAM+MHC-II+UEA-1+ mTECs was measured 5 days later. f, Female 1- to 2-month-old C57BL/6 WT or Il18r1−/− mice were exposed to SL-TBI, and CD45−EpCAM+MHC-II+Ly51+ cTEC and CD45−EpCAM+MHC-II+UEA-1+ mTEC cellularity was measured 3 days later (n = 5 biological replicates per group, representative of two independent experiments). g, Data extrapolated from the images in Fig. 4e. The distance between NKp46+ cells and either keratin-14+ mTECs or keratin-8+ cTECs was estimated by nearest-neighbor analysis and shown as a waterfall plot (day 0, n = 278; day 3, n = 1,663; day 7, n = 426). Graphs represent mean ± s.e.m.; each dot represents an individual biological replicate. Statistics were generated for b–f using unpaired two-tailed t tests and for g using one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s correction for multiple comparisons.
