[HTML][HTML] Reinvestigation of classic T cell subsets and identification of novel cell subpopulations by single-cell RNA sequencing

X Wang, X Shen, S Chen, H Liu, N Hong… - The Journal of …, 2022 - journals.aai.org
X Wang, X Shen, S Chen, H Liu, N Hong, H Zhong, X Chen, W Jin
The Journal of Immunology, 2022journals.aai.org
Classic T cell subsets are defined by a small set of cell surface markers, while single-cell
RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) clusters cells using genome-wide gene expression profiles.
The relationship between scRNA-seq clustered populations (scCPops) and cell surface
marker–defined classic T cell subsets remains unclear. In this article, we integrated six bead-
enriched T cell subsets with 62,235 single-cell transcriptomes from human PBMCs and
clustered them into nine scCPops. Bead-enriched CD4+/CD45RA+/CD25− naive T and …
Abstract
Classic T cell subsets are defined by a small set of cell surface markers, while single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) clusters cells using genome-wide gene expression profiles. The relationship between scRNA-seq clustered populations (scCPops) and cell surface marker–defined classic T cell subsets remains unclear. In this article, we integrated six bead-enriched T cell subsets with 62,235 single-cell transcriptomes from human PBMCs and clustered them into nine scCPops. Bead-enriched CD4+/CD45RA+/CD25− naive T and CD8+/CD45RA+ naive T cells were mainly clustered into their scCPop counterparts, while cells from the other T cell subsets were assigned to multiple scCPops, including mucosal-associated invariant T cells and NKT cells. The multiple T cell subsets forming one scCPop exhibit similar expression patterns, but not vice versa, indicating scCPop is a more homogeneous cell population with similar cell states. Interestingly, we discovered and named IFN signaling–associated gene (ISAG) high T (ISAG hi T) cells, a T cell subpopulation that highly expressed ISAGs. We further enriched ISAG hi T cells from human PBMCs by FACS of BST2 for scRNA-seq analyses. The ISAG hi T cell cluster disappeared on t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding plot after removing ISAGs, whereas the ISAG hi T cell cluster showed up by analysis of ISAGs alone, indicating ISAGs are the major contributor of the ISAG hi T cell cluster. BST2+ and BST2− T cells showing different efficiencies of T cell activation indicate that a high level of ISAGs may contribute to quick immune responses.
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