Figure 2.

Detailed characterization of NK cells in pediatric cancer patients and controls

(A) Biaxial plots of concatenated FCS files from healthy children (n = 19) and pediatric cancer patients (n = 20). Total NK cells were manually gated using CD16 and CD56 expression to delineate NK cells into three canonical differentiation subsets. In order of maturity: subset 1 (CD56^brightCD16^-), 2 (CD56^dimCD16^-), 3 (CD56⁺CD16⁺). The proportion of NK cells in each subset is shown on each plot.

(B) Heat plots of cell density from subset 1 were overlaid on black and white contour tSNE plots of total NK cells from paediatric healthy donors (left panel) and pediatric cancer patients (right panel).

(C) Frequency of each NK subset, expressed as a percentage of total NK cells per individual.

(D) Mass cytometry analysis of pediatric cancer patients and paediatric healthy donors showing percentage of total NK cells positive for the indicated markers. The mean ± 1 standard deviation is shown. p values were calculated using Wilcoxon ranked sum tests with false discovery rate at 5% and correction using the Benjamini-Hochberg method. Significant results are indicated: ∗p < 0.05, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗∗∗p < 0.001.