Fig. 5.

The expression of the predicted upstream regulator USF2 is up-regulated in nonresponders. (A) Heat map of the leading-edge genes defined by the GSEA comparisons in Fig. 4D. The enriched genes were categorized into two groups: DE genes unique to NRes (Upper); DE genes shared by Non-Res and Res (Lower). (B) DE genes unique to NRes (n = 18) were subjected to the Enrichr ENCODE TF CHIP-SEq 2015 analysis, and the top five predicted upstream transcription factors ranked by combined score were shown. (C and D) qPCR analysis on USF2 expression in CCR6⁺ T cells (HC, n = 6; NRes, n = 7; Res, n = 6; unpaired two-tailed Student’s t test, *P < 0.05, mean ± SD). Data are on all samples categorized by with or without stimulation (C) and on stimulated or unstimulated cells categorized by disease diagnosis (D).