Fig. 5: Functional synapse interactions in metastatic melanoma.
a Intratumor T-cell synapses with loaded CD14+ cells are significantly stronger than those with unloaded CD14+ cells and melanoma (p = 3.7 × 10–4 and p = 6.9 × 10–5 respectively) and are also stronger than expected from the intratumor null synapse model (denoted by *p = 2.4 × 10–5). Stromal T-cell synapses with unloaded CD14+ cells are significantly stronger than those with loaded CD14+ cells (p = 1.3 × 10–3) and the stromal null model (denoted by *p = 2.9 × 10–6). b Intratumor T-cell synapses with loaded CD14+ cells are stronger than stromal T-cell synapses to loaded CD14+ cells (p = 6.9 × 10–5). In contrast, T-cell synapses with unloaded CD14+ cells are stronger in the stroma than in the tumor (p = 1.3 × 10–3). c Super-resolution imaging of two stromal T-cells in contact with CD14+ cells in the TME. The T-cell on the right is in contact with the neighboring CD14+ cell’s dendrite, and CD3 is aggregating in the contact region. Scale bar = 4 μm. d Volumetric rendering of the right T-cell in C with ICAM-1 shown. The CD14+ cell’s ICAM-1 can be seen aggregating in the dendrite. Scale bar = 2 μm. APC antigen-presenting cell. \(\bar{{\rm{\sigma }}}\): sample-level mean synapse strength. Rendering was performed using the Imaris software.
