Homo sapiens Raw sequence reads

SummaryA population of CD8+ T cells expressing the C–X–C chemokine receptor type 5 (CXCR5) display more potent efficacy on viral replication than the CXCR5- counterpart in mice with chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection, which suggest that this subset may exist in a reduced state of 'exhaustion' and maintain suboptimal but critical function. However, it remains unknown about the transcriptomes of this subset in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Herein, we determined the transcriptomes of splenic CXCR5+CD8+ T cells and CXCR5-CD8+ T cells in patients with chronic HBV infection.Overall designSplenic lymphocytes were obtained from 3 patients who underwent splenectomy due to HBV-related liver cirrhosis induced hypersplenism, then the CXCR5+CD8+ T cells and CXCR5-CD8+ T cells were sorted. Total RNA was acquired and libraries for RNA-seq were prepared using the BGISEQ-500 platform. KEGG pathway analysis showed that, although the two subsets shared a mass of molecular characteristics, we found over one thousand transcripts that were significantly downregulated or upregulated (two fold or more) in CXCR5+CD8+ T cells relative to their expression in the CXCR5- subset. It is worth noting the CXCR5+ subset showed lower expression of transcripts encoding effector molecules involved in cytotoxicity, including granzyme and perforin, while had higher expression of transcripts encoding TNF, MX1, and ISG15). Conclusions: CXCR5+CD8+ T cells displayed as a distinct subset that differed transcriptionally from the CXCR5-CD8+ T cells in chronic HBV infection.