Fig. 5
Influence of clinical parameters on NK cell repertoire diversity. a Principal component analysis (PCA), b stochastic neighbor embedding (SNE), c donor-to-donor expression variation (DEV), and d inverse Simpson diversity index (SDI) analyses of NK cells from patients with chronic HCV relative to clinical parameters. PCA and SNE analyses were performed on CD56dim NK cells, DEV, and SDI on total NK cells. For gender, male n = 13, female n = 11; for age, <60 years n = 13, >60 years n = 11; for cirrhosis-status (cirrhosis defined as Fibroscan value > 14.5), fibrosis n = 6, cirrhosis n = 18; for CMV status, seronegative n = 7, seropositive n = 17; for treatment outcome, sustained virological response (SVR) n = 16, relapse n = 8. For SNE analysis, two samples were excluded due to different staining panels and one sample since it represented a significant outlier. Unpaired t-test, Mann–Whitney test (SDI), and Wilcoxon test (DEV) were used for statistical analysis. In (c) and (d), bars represent median values, ***p < 0.001
