Fig. 8: Naked mole-rat invariant γδ TCR sequences are generated in the thymus until mid-life.

A Tree maps representing the TRG repertoire in neonate and adult thymic samples highlighting in red the prevalence of the invariant TRGV4-2 CDR3 sequence. B Tree maps representing the TRD repertoire in neonate and adult thymic samples highlighting in red the prevalence of the invariant TRDV1-4 CDR3 sequence. For (A, B): each Tree map represents the repertoire data of the indicated naked mole-rat ID (see Supplementary Table 1 for more information for each ID number). C UMAP plot colored based on identified clusters from thymic (thoracic and cervical) single cells (left) and colored by organ origin of the cells (right). Data are obtained from a public dataset with sequencing data from 4 animals (2 young-adult and 2 middle-aged adult individuals). D Bar plot indicating the relative frequency of TCRαβ and TCRγδ cells in the different thymic clusters identified under (C). Cells are classified in one of the two categories if at least one of both constitutive TCR chains (TRA or TRB and TRG or TRD) is detected in their transcriptome. Cells without TCR transcript detection (non_detected) are not depicted in the plot (E) UMAP plots (as generated under (C)) displaying TRGV (left) and TRDV (right) usage in the single cell thymic data. F UMAP plot as generated under (C) highlighting the thymocytes that express the invariant TRGV4-2 sequence across the ontogeny. Abbreviations on (C): DN2/3 (double negative); DN4/ISP (immature single positive); eDP (early double-positive), lDP (late double-positive), eCD4-SP (early CD4 single-positive); CD4-TC (CD4⁺ T-lymphocyte); CD8-TC (CD8⁺ T-lymphocyte); DP.ext (extrathymic/circulating DPs); Treg (regulatory T cell); CD4-CTL (CD4⁺ cytotoxic T-lymphocyte). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.