Single-cell and bulk RNA-seq of Th2. Mus musculus

Th2 cell is a subset of CD4+ T helper (Th) cells, which regulates the immunity to extracellular parasites and allergic inflammation. Th2 cells specifically secrete Type 2 cytokines such as IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, and also express many universal cytokines like IL-2 and GM-CSF. While theses cytokines are indispensable for Th2 cell mediated response, there is complex heterogeneity in the pattern of cytokine production among Th2 cell population. As previous studies were mainly conducted at population levelref, here we took advantage of single-cell RNA-seq to explore heterogeneity in in vitro differentiated Th2 cells. Although a few single cell researches about Th2 cells was conducted, there is no comprehensive understanding of the heterogeneity of Th2 lineage yet, inspiring us to make some difference on this issue. Our studies identify that cytokine genes contributed most to the transcriptome heterogeneity of Th2 cells; expression of universal cytokines showed bimodality, but not Th2 specific cytokines. Overall design: 56 Single Th2 cells for single-cell RNA-seq. Pooled 10,000 Th2 cells for bulk RNA-seq.