Figure 1.

Human hepatic CD56^bright NK cell populations express a distinct transcriptional profile association with tissue residency. RNA-sequencing analysis of flow cytometry sorted NK cell subpopulations from healthy human liver perfusate (n = 5) and healthy human peripheral blood (n = 5). (A), PCA analysis of 405 differentially expressed genes (ANOVA q-value < 0.05) and (B), K-means clustering of PCA. (C), Heatmap of average gene expression of selected NK cell-related genes. (D), Gene-set enrichment analysis comparing 769 genes with >2 fold change between liver and blood CD56^brightCD16^- NK cells, against up-regulated genes in tissue-resident lymphocytes from Kumar et al., 2017 (40). (E), Gene-set enrichment analysis comparing 769 genes with >2 fold change between liver and blood CD56^brightCD16^- NK cells, against up-regulated genes in tissue-resident lymphocytes from Mackay et al., 2016 (41). (F), Representative histograms of protein validation of differentially regulated genes via flow cytometry on CD56^brightCD16^- NK cells (n = 5-11).