Fig. 1

Identification of differentially expressed tRFs in CD4⁺ T cells from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients and healthy controls (HCs). A Heatmap of differentially expressed tRFs between SLE patients (n  =  4) and HCs (n  =  3). The red indicates upregulated genes, and the green indicates downregulated genes. B Motif prediction showed the 3′ end sequence characteristics of upregulated tRFs (upper panel) and downregulated tRFs (lower panel). C Sequences of the candidate differentially expressed tRFs and their precursors. D Expressions of candidate tRFs (tRF-3009, tRF-3021, tRF-1001 and tRF-1035) in CD4⁺ T cells of SLE patients, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients and HCs. The expression trends of four tRFs was consistent with the small RNA sequencing results. qRT-PCR was performed on RNA samples from 97 SLE patients, 10 RA patients, 15 AS patients and 20 HCs. Data are presented as 2^−ΔCt relative to U6 expression. **P  <  0.01; ***P  <  0.001