Aberrant circulating CXCR5⁺ PD1⁺/CD4⁺ but not CCR6⁺/CD4⁺ T cells correlated with disease activity in SLE patients.

A. Elevated circulating CXCR5⁺ PD1⁺/CD4⁺ cells in SLE patients compared to normal controls. PBMCs were quantified by FACS, each symbol represented an individual sample and horizontal lines showed median values. Mann-Whitney U test was conducted to compare the data between two groups. B. Circulating CCR6⁺/CD4⁺ cell proportions enriched for Th17-like cells were compared between SLE patients and normal controls. C. Correlation between percentages of CXCR5⁺ PD1⁺/CD4⁺ cells and disease activity of 42 SLE patients. Pearson correlation was applied to depict linear relationships.