Fig. 4.

Co-expression of CD146 with CD25 ex vivo. Co-expression of CD146 with CD25 was analysed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy donors (HDs) and connective tissue diseases (CTD) patients. (a) Representative flow cytometry dot-plots of CD146 versus CD25, gated on CD4⁺ (top row) or CD8 (bottom row) T cells as shown in Fig. 1. Percentages of single- or double-positive cells are shown. (b) In each patient group, expression of CD25 was compared between total CD4 T cells (squares) and CD146⁺ CD4 T cells (triangles) in individual donors (connected by lines). (c) The same analysis is shown for CD8 T cells. In (b) and (c), the numerical P-values indicate significant (P < 0·05) enrichment for activation marker expression within the CD146⁺ subset, compared to bulk T cells from the same donor (paired analysis by Wilcoxon's signed-rank test). In contrast, the asterisks indicate significantly increased (*P < 0·05; **P < 0·01, by Kruskal–Wallis analysis of variance (anova) on ranks with Dunn's post-test) frequencies compared to the same population in HDs or disease controls (as indicated in parentheses).