Antigen-driven EGR2 expression is required for exhausted CD8+ T cell stability and maintenance [scRNAseq]

In this study, we examined the role of the transcriptional regulator EGR2 in CD8+ T cell exhaustion during chronic viral infection. We conducted scRNAseq analysis on sorted virus-specific tetramer+ CD8+ T cells isolated at day 20 post-infection with chronic LCMV-Cl13 from either littermate control or EGR2 T cell conditional knock-out mice. Cells were labelled with hashtags and mixed prior to multiplexed analysis. The resulting data demonstrated that the exhausted cell subsets within EGR2 KO CD8+ T cells have an effector-like phenotype, suggesting that EGR2 stabilises the exhausted state. The subset composition and transcriptome of exhausted wild-type or EGR2 knockout CD8+ T cells were examined by scRNAseq.