{"doi":"10.3390/jcm9072164","title":"Sjögren’s Syndrome Minor Salivary Gland CD4+ Memory T Cells Associate with Glandular Disease Features and Have a Germinal Center T Follicular Helper Transcriptional Profile","abstract":"To assess the types of salivary gland (SG) T cells contributing to Sjögren’s syndrome (SS), we evaluated SG T cell subtypes for association with disease features and compared the SG CD4+ memory T cell transcriptomes of subjects with either primary SS (pSS) or non-SS sicca (nSS). SG biopsies were evaluated for proportions and absolute numbers of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. SG memory CD4+ T cells were evaluated for gene expression by microarray. Differentially-expressed genes were identified, and gene set enrichment and pathways analyses were performed. CD4+CD45RA− T cells were increased in pSS compared to nSS subjects (33.2% vs. 22.2%, p < 0.0001), while CD8+CD45RA− T cells were decreased (38.5% vs. 46.0%, p = 0.0014). SG fibrosis positively correlated with numbers of memory T cells. Proportions of SG CD4+CD45RA− T cells correlated with focus score (r = 0.43, p < 0.0001), corneal damage (r = 0.43, p < 0.0001), and serum Ro antibodies (r = 0.40, p < 0.0001). Differentially-expressed genes in CD4+CD45RA− cells indicated a T follicular helper (Tfh) profile, increased homing and increased cellular interactions. Predicted upstream drivers of the Tfh signature included TCR, TNF, TGF-β1, IL-4, and IL-21. In conclusion, the proportions and numbers of SG memory CD4+ T cells associate with key SS features, consistent with a central role in disease pathogenesis.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Medicine","year":2020,"id":100816,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":28,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9627,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":494219,"name":"Kerry M. Leehan","orcid":"0000-0003-0099-4829","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":265858,"name":"Mikhail G. Dozmorov","orcid":"0000-0002-0086-8358","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494220,"name":"Constantin Georgescu","orcid":"0000-0003-1389-8342","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494221,"name":"Zijian Pan","orcid":"0000-0002-1109-444X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494942,"name":"Christina Lawrence","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494222,"name":"M. Caleb Marlin","orcid":"0000-0003-0453-5355","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":283806,"name":"Susan Macwana","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":380176,"name":"Astrid Rasmussen","orcid":"0000-0001-7744-2948","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494943,"name":"Lida Radfar","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494223,"name":"David M. Lewis","orcid":"0000-0001-7396-9793","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494944,"name":"Donald U. Stone","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494945,"name":"Kiely Grundahl","orcid":null,"position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":280482,"name":"R. Hal Scofield","orcid":"0000-0003-1015-5850","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":281380,"name":"Christopher J. Lessard","orcid":"0000-0003-2440-3843","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":355806,"name":"Jonathan D. Wren","orcid":"0000-0003-2776-3545","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494224,"name":"Linda F. Thompson","orcid":"0000-0002-0237-831X","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":226232,"name":"Joel M. Guthridge","orcid":"0000-0002-9308-237X","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494946,"name":"Kathy L. Sivils","orcid":null,"position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494947,"name":"Jacen S. Moore","orcid":null,"position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":419781,"name":"A. Darise Farris","orcid":"0000-0003-3009-2017","position":20,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494941,"name":"Michelle L. Joachims","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":56,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:39:01.863288Z","pmid":"32650575","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}