Fig. 6: Crosstalk between epithelial cells and TRMs.

a Bar graphs displaying the number and strength of interactions between epithelial cells and TRMs in normal cervical tissues and CC tissues, respectively. b CellChat analysis of scRNA-seq data to identify cell-cell communications between epithelial cells and TRM subclusters in CC tissues. The color intensity indicates the number (top panel) and strength (bottom panel) of the cell-cell interactions. c Bubble plots showing differences in ligand-receptor pairs involved in interactions between epithelial cell-CXCL13⁺ CD8⁺ TRM and epithelial cell-PLAC8⁺ CD8⁺ TRM in normal cervical tissues and CC tissues. Bubble size and color intensity indicate p-value magnitude and communication probability, respectively. d Circle plots showing the indicated ligand-receptor pairs involved in interactions between epithelial cells and either CXCL13⁺ CD8⁺ TRMs, or PLAC8⁺ CD8⁺ TRMs in CC tissues (left) and normal cervical tissues (right); color-coded by cell type. e Representative immunofluorescent labeling of Pan-CK (yellow), CXCL13 (red), CD103 (green), CD8 (white), and DAPI (blue) to identify epithelial cells, CXCL13⁺ CD8⁺ TRMs, and their spatial relationship in CC sections. Scale bar in figure, 20 μm.