Figure 7. Expression of a model antigen in mimetic cells suffices to induce T cell tolerance.

(A) Representative flow plots showing YFP expression in mTECs from the indicated strains.

(B and C) Volcano plots of bulk RNA-seq of purified YFP⁺ versus YFP^– mTECs from (B) Foxj1^YFP and (C) Ckm^YFP mice. Signature p values were calculated by chi-square tests.

(D and E) PCA of bulk RNA-seq of (D) non-ciliated mTEC (n = 3), ciliated mTEC (n = 2), ciliated airway cells (n = 3), and alveolar type 2 (AT2) lung epithelial cells (n = 3), and (E) non-muscle mTEC (n = 2), muscle mTEC (n = 2), and quadriceps skeletal muscle (n = 2). Each dot is one biological replicate.

(F and G) Immunofluorescence of thymic sections from (F) Foxj1^YFP and (G) Ckm^YFP mice, stained for the indicated markers. Scale bars, 30 μm.

(H and I) Representative flow plots (top) and summarized data (bottom) of the number of YFP_81–95^‒specific CD4⁺ T cells (H) and CD4⁺Foxp3⁺ Tregs (I) elicited in the indicated strains. For summarized data in (H) and (I), each dot is one mouse, data are pooled from 6 independent experiments, bars show mean ± SEM, and p values were calculated by one-way ANOVA with Dunnett’s test on log-transformed cell numbers. Mice with zero antigen-specific T cells were assigned a value of 1 to allow for log-transformation.

See also Table S4.