Fig. 1: Cellular interactions in autoimmune myocarditis.
a–c, Enumeration of heart-infiltrating CD45+ cells (a), MYH6-specific (Vα2+ Vβ8+CD4+) T cells (b) and CD11b+ myeloid cells (c) from 4-week-old and 8-week-old TCRM or control (Ctrl) mice. d, Histopathological disease severity in control and TCRM mice. e, Representative confocal microscopy images showing CD4+ and CD11b+ cells and COL1 deposition in hearts from 8-week-old control and TCRM mice. Boxed areas in left panels denote magnified area in right panels (n = 4). f–k, scRNA-seq and snRNA-seq analysis from total cardiac cells from age-matched and sex-matched control and TCRM mice. f, UMAP representation showing 16 cell populations in the heart of control and TCRM mice. g, Significantly enriched pathways according to GO enrichment analysis based on differentially expressed genes between total cardiac cells from control and TCRM mice. h, Scatter plot indicating incoming and outgoing interaction strengths of individual cell subsets based on network centrality measures on the aggregated cell–cell communication network. Dot size reflects interaction count. i, Top significantly enriched ligand–receptor pairs grouped according to functional similarity. Numbers in brackets indicate the quantity of receptor pairs within a functional group. j, UMAP projection showing the expression of the indicated genes. k, Dot plot depicting the average expression of the indicated BMP pathway-related genes in cardiac cells. l, Quantification of BMP4 protein in heart homogenates by ELISA. scRNA-seq/snRNA-seq data represent a total of 28,913 cells per nuclei from control (n = 6) and TCRM (n = 6) mice. Pooled data from 2–3 independent experiments with n = 7, 8 and 8 mice per group (a–c), n = 8, 8 and 9 mice per group (d) or n = 6 mice per group (l). Representative sections from one out of five control or TCRM mice (c). Dots represent values from individual mice; box and whiskers show minimum to maximum, mean ± interquartile range (a–d and l). CM, cardiomyocytes; EC, endothelial cells; FB, fibroblasts; Mono, monocytes; Mph, macrophages; NK cells, natural killer cells; PVC, perivascular cells; Ts, T cells; wk, weeks.
