Fig. 7: Comparison of conventional and KIR-binding CD8⁺ T-cells.

a Staining pattern of donors with conventional-size tetramer staining and donors with oversized tetramer⁺CD8⁺ T cell populations for the A/PB1_498–505 and B/NP_165–173 tetramers pre- and post-enrichment. b Presence (+) or absence (−) of conventional (blue) and oversized tetramer⁺CD8⁺ T cell populations (red) populations across all samples tested. c Phenotypic analysis of tetramer-enriched CD8⁺ T-cells from conventional-size and oversized populations for both A/PB1_498–505 and B/NP_165–173 tetramers (conventional A/PB1₄₉₈-binding cells n = 7 biologically independent samples; pre-TAME A/PB1₄₉₈-binding cells n = 6 biologically independent samples, conventional B/NP₁₆₅-binding cells n = 9 biologically independent samples, pre-Tame B/NP₁₆₅-binding cells n = 7 biologically independent samples). Bars indicate mean + SD. Statistical significance was calculated using a two-tailed Mann–Whitney test. d Tetramer-staining pattern of conventional and oversized-binding staining for scRNA-seq pre- and post-enrichment. e Unsupervised clustering of mRNA expression of enriched tetramer-binding CD8⁺ T-cells (n = 30 cells per donor). All listed genes in the SC3 plot have a p-value < 0.05 and AUC > 0.65. p-values have been calculated using the two-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank test without adjustments. f KIR3DL1 expression on different CD8⁺ T-cell phenotypes in non-LIFT 8 (top panel) and co-staining of A/PB1_498–505 tetramer and KIR3DL1 without enrichment. g Effects of KIR3DL1 blocking on conventional and pre-TAME-binding tetramer⁺CD8⁺ T-cells pre- and post-enrichment.