Fig. 6

Detection of endogenous CD4⁺c‐Met⁺Itgα4⁺ T cells in MS patients. A Live lymphocytes from PBMCs of patients were first selected based on their morphology using FSC/SSC parameters, followed by the exclusion of doublets and dead cells (DRAQ7⁺). CD3⁺CD4⁺ T lymphocytes were subsequently selected and c-Met expression assessed on CD4⁺ T cells. B Flow cytometry quantification of circulating CD4⁺c-Met⁺ T cells in PBMCs from controls (other neurological disease (OND), n = 8) and multiple sclerosis (MS, n = 7) patients gated as described in A. Data are presented as mean ± SEM; ***p ≤ 0.001 by unpaired two‐tailed Student's t‐test. C Flow cytometry quantification of Itgα4⁺ on circulating CD4⁺c-Met⁻ and CD4⁺c-Met⁺ T cells in multiple sclerosis (MS, n = 7) patients. Data are presented as mean ± SEM; *p ≤ 0.05 by Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test. D Representative immunofluorescent images of a brain biopsy from MS patient that showed the expression of CD4 (red), c-Met (green) and cell nuclei (white). Note that 22% of the CD4⁺ cells (50 ± 7) found in the section that measured around 6.2 mm² (1000 μm × 6200 μm) were c-Met⁺ (11 ± 2). Scale bar = 5 μm