Fig. 4: The expression of CD25 in naive TH cells is regulated by genetic and early environmental factors and is increased in patients with MS in a cross-sectional validation cohort.
From: Twin study reveals non-heritable immune perturbations in multiple sclerosis
a, Flow cytometry data of PBMCs from healthy monozygotic (n = 21) and dizygotic (n = 22) twin pairs age-matched to the cohort for twins with MS were used in a structural equation model to estimate the contribution of genetics and shared and non-shared environmental drivers on immune composition. b–d, Bar graphs (b) and pie charts (c, d) displaying the variance components for the populations in the manually annotated reference framework (b), the mean variance components across all detected immune subsets (c) and the variance components for the expression of CD25 in TH cells displaying a naive phenotype (d). e, Data-driven analysis of twin pairs discordant for MS revealed MS-specific immune features that were validated within a cross-sectional validation cohort consisting of healthy donors (HD; n = 29) and patients with RRMS (n = 30). f, Violin plot showing the mean expression of CD25 in TH cells displaying a naive phenotype of healthy donors and patients with RRMS. In the violin plots, the bold horizontal line depicts the respective group mean. If not indicated, differences between experimental groups were statistically not significant (P > 5%) using a two-sided unpaired non-parametric Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test with a false discovery correction according to the Benjamini–Hochberg approach.
