Fig. 4

Gene expression patterns of the different clusters. B-cell transcriptome profiles were compared between healthy controls and subgroups of patients with multiple sclerosis. The top 500 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were grouped in 8 clusters. In this plot, a line is drawn for each DEG by connecting the average standardized expression value of each study group. The cluster color code is as shown in Fig. 3. The thick line in each subpanel shows the mean of the means over all genes in the cluster. For each cluster, the most overrepresented gene functional term that is characteristic of the respective gene set is given. In addition, the dot plots on the right of each subpanel visualize the average expression of the genes in different B-cell subsets according to the data set by Monaco et al. [54]. The gene names are given in Additional file 4. B ex = exhausted memory B cells, B n = naive B cells, B nsm = non-switched memory B cells, B sm = switched memory B cells, IRT = immune reconstitution therapy, pb = plasmablasts, PPMS = primary progressive multiple sclerosis