Lymphatic Vessel Transit Seeds Cytotoxic Resident Memory T Cells in Skin Draining Lymph Nodes

Resident memory T cells (T_RM) provide localized protection in peripheral tissues to pathogens and cancer. However, how they develop during primary infection and their functional significance remains unclear. This study observed the anatomical distribution of anti-viral CD8⁺ T cells as they simultaneously seed skin and lymph nodes T_RM. To determine transcriptional differences between cells in the draining lymph node and those recently emigrating from the skin, single-cell RNA sequencing was performed on KaedeGreen and KaedeRed CD8⁺ T cells 12 days post infection with vaccinia virus expressing GP33_33-41. In addition, to understand how lymph nodes T_RM functionally differed from circulating memory populations in the draining lymph nodes, single-cell RNA sequencing was performed on all transferred P14 CD8⁺ T cells in the draining lymph nodes 45 days post infection with vaccinia virus expressing GP33_33-41. This dataset contains single-cell RNA sequencing data from KaedeGreen and KaedeRed CD8⁺ T cells and P14 CD8⁺ T cells.