Fig 5. NK cell markers associated with maturity influence VZV infection of NK cells and are modulated by VZV.

Healthy human donor PBMCs were mock or VZV infected with or without IL-2 (200 U/ml) for 2 days then analysed by flow cytometry. (A) Diagram describes gating strategy and tSNE analysis workflow for samples shown in (B & C). (B & C) tSNE plots show marker expression levels for single parameters on individual cells in the tSNE map for mock and VZV cultured NK cells after 2 days, either untreated (B) or in the presence of IL-2 (C). Arrowheads indicate the CD56^bright NK cell subset, and the outlined population indicates the localisation of VZV⁺ NK cells. One representative experiment of three is shown. (D & E) Plots show CD57 expression between mock and VZV cultured NK cells (D) and between bystander and VZV⁺ NK cells (E), from one representative donor. Graphs show respective frequencies of CD57⁺ NK cells when untreated or with IL-2 (shaded) for four donors. Bars indicate mean. (F) Histograms show CD16 expression for mock, bystander and VZV⁺ NK cells from one representative donor. Graph shows frequency of CD16⁺ NK cells when untreated or with IL-2 (shaded) for six donors. Bars indicate mean. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (Friedman test with Dunn’s multiple comparisons test).