Fig. 1: Single-cell RNA sequencing captured the tissue microenvironment of oral mucosa with/without inflammation and revealed pyroptosis of epithelial cells may promote the inflammatory development of oral mucosal epithelium.

a Left, UMAP plot of 128,694 cell colors by cell types. Right, histogram showing the cell proportions of all cell types with disease subtypes. b Scatterplots exhibiting the intercellular interaction strength colored by cell types in normal (left), NREOLP (middle), and REOLP (right). c Developmental trajectory of epithelial cell subtypes (left) and HMGB1 (right). d Heatmap and dot plot revealing the biological function characteristics of epithelial cell subtypes. Dot size, the log₂(fold change) of signaling pathways; color scale, −log₁₀(adjust p-value) of signaling pathways. e UMAP plot and donut plot displayed the distribution and cell proportions of the differential abundance (DA) epithelial cells in the inflammatory development of oral mucosal epithelium. Red: DA epithelial cells in REOLP. Blue: DA epithelial cells in NREOLP. f Violin plot showing the change of signaling pathways in the inflammatory development of oral mucosal epithelium. Note: **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; NS: not statistically significant. g Scatterplots showing the correlation of the “Pyroptosis” signaling pathway and the signaling pathways of “Positive regulation of innate immune response” (left) and “Regulation of Mφ differentiation” (right) in pyroptotic epithelial cells of REOLP.