Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of blood T cells from healthy controls, MS patients and COVID-19 patients by 10X genomics

In order to better understand the functional properties of this type of cells under different circumstances, we integrated the single-cell RNA-seq data of peripheral blood CD8+ T cells from healthy subjects, MS patients and COVID-19 patients generated from the 10X Genomics platform using the Seurat package. KIR+CD8+ T cells from different conditions (healthy, MS, and COVID-19) formed a distinct cluster with high expression of effector genes (GZMB and PRF1) as well as KIR transcripts. These findings reveal the commonality of KIR+CD8+ T cells across physiological and diseased status as well as their uniqueness relative to other CD8+ T cells. Overall design: Pan T cells were isolated from the blood of healthy subjects (N=4) and MS patients (N=6) and then subjected to scRNA-seq analysis by 10X genomics. 10X scRNA-seq data of blood CD8 T cells from COVID-19 patients (N=25) were acquired from ArrayExpress: E-MTAB-9357.

为深入解析此类细胞在不同条件下的功能特性，我们整合了通过10X Genomics平台完成测序、经Seurat软件包分析的健康受试者、多发性硬化（Multiple Sclerosis，MS）患者与新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）患者外周血CD8+ T细胞的单细胞RNA测序（single-cell RNA sequencing，scRNA-seq）数据。不同生理与病理状态（健康、MS、新冠肺炎）下的KIR+CD8+ T细胞（KIR+CD8+ T cells）可形成一个独立细胞簇，该细胞簇高表达效应基因GZMB、PRF1以及KIR转录本。上述研究结果揭示了KIR+CD8+ T细胞在生理与疾病状态下的共性，以及其相较于其他CD8+ T细胞的独特性。整体实验设计如下：从健康受试者（N=4）与MS患者（N=6）的血液中分离总T细胞，随后通过10X Genomics平台开展scRNA-seq分析。新冠肺炎患者（N=25）外周血CD8+ T细胞的10X scRNA-seq数据获取自ArrayExpress数据库，收录号为E-MTAB-9357。