Fig. 5. T-VEC fosters a humoral immune response.

a, UMAP of plasma and B cells after treatment (nine clusters). b, Bubble plot indicating the average (Avg.) expression levels of selected marker genes in each cell cluster. c, Bar plots presenting the composition of B and plasma cells. The colors reflect the ones of the immune cell clusters of a, split by pathological response classified in pCR and non-pCR and clinical response categorized in CR, PR and SD. d, Bar plots showing immunoglobulin (Ig) types in B and plasma cells according to their clonality (left) and cell type (right). e, Exemplary merged mIF staining (IgG1⁺, yellow; CD138⁺, green; PanCK⁺, pink) of a pre-treatment BCC, and corresponding single stainings (IgG1⁺, yellow; CD138⁺, green; PanCK⁺, pink). Scale bar, 50 µm, ×40 magnification. CD138⁺ plasma cells pre- versus post-treatment (P = 0.0182) and IgG1⁺CD138⁺ plasma cells pre- versus post-treatment (P = 0.0155) from patients with paired tumor tissue samples (n = 16) are separately represented by box plots (cells per mm²), and according to pathological response (pCR (n = 6) (P = 0.013)/(P = 0.0312) and non-pCR (n = 10) (P = 0.275)/(P = 0.1602)) (two-sided Wilcoxon signed-rank test; statistical significance determined with P < 0.05). Data are presented as mean ± s.e.m. Each box extends from the 25th (Q1, lower bound of the box) to the 75th (Q3, upper bound of the box) percentile, the horizontal line in the center of the box represents the median value (Q2), the lower bound of lower whiskers mark the 5th (min) percentile and the upper bound of whiskers the 95th (max) percentile. Dots represent individual values. f, Bar plots displaying terms from the MSigDB Hallmarks database. Terms are ranked by P value and the total number of genes overlapping differentially expressed genes and adjusted P value are indicated (enricher one-sided hypergeometric test with false discovery rate correction; Benjamini–Hochberg)⁷⁷. The universe is defined by all detected genes in the B cell/plasma cell subsets.

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