Fig. 7. Combination therapy induces activation and effector function of splenic CD8⁺ T cells.

STING^gt/gt mice with Yumm1.7 tumors were treated intratumorally with PBS, 5AZADC, ADU-S100, or 5AZADC + ADU-S100 as indicated in Fig. 4a; spleens were harvested on 21 after tumor cell inoculation and analyzed by flow cytometry. Shown are frequency of splenic CD8⁺ cells within the CD3⁺ population (a), frequency of CD69⁺ CD44⁺ cells within the CD8⁺ population (b), representative histograms of CD44⁺ cells within the CD3⁺ CD8⁺ population (c), frequency of central memory (T_CM, CD44⁺ CD62L⁺) CD8⁺ T cells (d), representative pie charts indicating relative proportions of defined T cell subsets [Naïve: CD44^- CD62L⁺; Effector: CD44^- CD62L^-; Effector Memory (EM): CD44⁺ CD62L^-; Central Memory (CM): CD44⁺ CD62L⁺] (e), intracellular expression of IFN-γ (f) and TNF-α (g) in CD8⁺ T cells. Data are representative of two independent experiments. n = 3 mice for PBS Control and 5AZADC, and n = 4 mice for ADU-S100 and 5AZADC + ADU-S100 groups in (a–b), (d) and (f–g). Data are shown as mean ± SD. Representative flow cytometric plots for a, b, d, and e, f, and g are shown in Supplementary Fig. 6(a), (b), (c), (d), and (e), respectively. Statistical significance was determined by one-way ANOVA (ns, not significant).