Expression of transcriptional factors in age-associated B cells

To gain insights into the nature of human age-associated B cells (ABCs), we sorted peripheral B cells from a patient with new-onset SLE and performed droplet-based scRNA-seq. Seven distinct clusters were revealed by unsupervised clustering with a two-dimensional uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP). These clusters were assigned to known peripheral B cell subsets including transitional B cells, naïve B cells, activated naïve B cells, ABCs, memory B cells, plasmablasts, and plasma cells by comparing differentially expressed genes with established landmark genes. ABCs preferentially expressed genes encoding key surface markers CD19, CD86, FCRLA, FCRL3/5, FCGR2B, MS4A1 and ITGAX. We found 43 differentially expressed TFs: 27 upregulated and 16 downregulated. The peripheral B cells from a patient with newly-onset SLE were sorted and performed droplet-based scRNA-seq. Then unsupervised clustering with a two-dimensional uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) was used to identify distinct clusters of peripheral B cells.