Fig. 7: Pathogenic γδT cells are in contact with cutaneous nerves and enriched in postsynaptic pathways.

a Workflow of scRNA-seq and data extraction for Ptprc⁺ (CD45⁺) immune cells in IMQ-induced mouse skin. b UMAP plot of immune cell clustering in IMQ-induced mouse skin. c Feature plots of pathogenic T-cell subset signature genes. d Dot plot of Il22, Il17f, and Il17a expression by clusters in (b). e Comparison of Il22, Il17f, and Il17a expression between epidermal and dermal T cells. Each point represents a single T cell (n = 352 for epidermis T-cell group and n = 331 for dermis T-cell group). f Enriched GO biological pathways of upregulated differentially expressed genes in Il17a⁺ versus Il17a^- dermal T cells. g Representative whole-mount images of Na_v1.8^tdTomatoIL-17A^EGFP dual reporter mouse skin with no treatment (UT, left panels) or 5-day IMQ administration (right panels, n = 3 mice per group). Scale bar, 100 μm. h Representative whole-mount image of Na_v1.8^tdTomatoIL-17A^EGFP dual reporter mouse skin with 3-day IMQ administration (n = 3 mice per group). IL-17A⁺ T cells in contact with cutaneous nerves in the upper dermis are marked with white arrows. Scale bar, 50 μm. i Representative image of a 3-dimensional interaction between IL-17A⁺ T cell (EGFP, green) and cutaneous nerves (tdTomato, red). The interaction sites are indicated by white arrowheads. Scale bar, 30 μm. j Quantification of in-contact ratio between IL-17A⁺ T cell and cutaneous nerves in psoriasiform mouse skin with 3-day or 5-day IMQ administration (n = 7 mouse skin samples per group). Data in (g–j) are representative of three independent experiments. Data in (j) are presented as the mean ± SEM. The P values were calculated by two-tailed unpaired Student’s t-test. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.