Fig. 1

Identification of CD4⁺CXCR5⁻FOXP3⁺ T cells in peripheral blood and spleen. (A) The frequency of CD4⁺CXCR5⁻FOXP3⁺ T cells in paired peripheral blood and spleen among patients with HBV infection (n = 9). Horizontal bars reflect the median. (B) The percentage of ki67 and T cell subsets (n = 9) in CD4⁺CXCR5⁻FOXP3⁺ T cells among two groups. T cell subsets were defined using the following gating strategy: naïve T cells (CCR7⁺CD45RO⁻), T_CM: central memory T cells (CCR7⁺CD45RO⁺), T_EM: effector memory T cells (CCR7⁻CD45RO⁺), T_EMRA: CD45RA expressing effector memory T cells (CCR7⁻CD45RO⁻) (C) The expression of surface and intracellular cytokines (n = 9) in CD4⁺CXCR5⁻FOXP3⁺ T cells among the above groups. (D) Volcano plot of differentially expressed genes in circulating and splenic CD4⁺CXCR5⁻FOXP3⁺ T cells. Labels in plots indicate selected downregulated genes (blue symbols) and upregulated genes (red symbols). (E) Bubble chart showed the top 20 differentially expressed Gene Ontology (GO) terms in molecular functions of CD4⁺CXCR5⁻FOXP3⁺ T cells in two groups. Wilcoxon signed-rank test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001