Fig. 1

HPVposVSCC are highly infiltrated with CD3+ T cells, especially CD3⁺CD8⁻Foxp3⁻ and CD3⁺CD8⁺Foxp3⁻ cells. The numbers of intraepithelial (a) and stromal (b) infiltrating CD3 (T cells), CD3⁺CD8⁻Foxp3⁻ (helper T cells), CD3⁺CD8⁺Foxp3⁻ (cytotoxic T cells), CD3⁺CD8⁻Foxp3⁺ (regulatory T cells) and CD3⁺PD1⁺ T cells as cells/mm² for HPV-negative healthy labia (n = 10), and HPVposVSCC (n = 23), HPVnegVSCC/p53wt (n = 20) and HPVnegVSCC/p53abn (n = 22) patients. CD3⁺Tbet⁺ T cells were counted on a subset of the total cohort of 10 HPVposVSCC, 6 HPVnegVSCC/p53wt and 5 HPVnegVSCC/p53abn. VSCC categorization was based on HPV-PCR, p16 and p53 IHC as described in materials and methods. The bars indicate the median cell count, individual samples are indicated by closed circles. Differences between two groups were calculated with a Mann-Whitney test with the significance indicated with asterisks. (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, and ****p < 0.0001)