Fig. 2: Overview of ESCC-infiltrated T cells.

A UMAP plot showing ESCC-infiltrated T cells, colored by sub-clusters. B UMAP plot showing ESCC-infiltrated T cells colored by main cell types. C Violin plots presenting the expression of marker genes in the identified main cell types. D Flow cytometry plots depicting PD1 and Tim3 expressions in CD8⁺ T cells sourced from different samples. E Pie chart showing the proportion of each main T cell type within the sample source. F, G Representative flow cytometry plots illustrating the gating strategy for CD8⁺PD1⁺ T cells and the expressions of CCR1, CD355, CD9, and CD106 across PR, SD and surgical tumors. H Dot plots showing the enrichment scores of each gene set across various T cell types. I GSEA comparing CD8⁺PD1^high T cells between PR and SD groups, showing enrichment of the interferon-γ response pathway (P = 0.0032). J GSEA comparing CD8⁺PD1^high T cells between PR and SD groups, showing enrichment of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway (P = 2e-04). All experiments were performed at least three times independently with similar results. Statistical significance between two groups was evaluated using Student’s t-tests, while one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-hoc tests was used for multiple group comparisons (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001). Values are expressed as mean ± standard error.