Description of the pDC SCs in HDs and SSc patients. (A) Reactome pathway analysis of activated and inactivated pathways in pDCs of SSc patients (n = 4) versus HDs (n = 4). For pathways sharing similar gene sets, only the top first with the highest normalized enriched score (NES) are shown. (B) Gene set enrichment analysis of IFN-α/β pathway in SSc versus healthy pDCs. (C) PCA of pathways activated in each of the pDC SCs. (D) Bar plots highlighting the cell number of the individual HDs (n = 4) and SSc patients (n = 4). (E) UMAP plots of the five SCs of pDCs in each of the individual healthy donors (n = 4) and SSc patients (n = 4). (F) Feature plot showing the expression of AP-1 transcription factors (JUN, FOS, combined JUN+FOS) in different pDC SCs. (G) Violin plot showing the expression of AP-1 transcription factors (JUN, FOS, combined JUN+FOS) and ISGs between HDs and SSc patients. Statistical significance was analyzed using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test; ****P < 0.0001. (H) The correlation of expression between AP-1 transcription factors (combined JUN+FOS) with ISGs score in pDCs of SSc patients as assessed using Pearson correlation, and the corresponding P values were reported (P < 2.2^e−16). (I and J) Violin plot showing the expression of CCR2, CCR7 and CXCR3 between (I) HDs and SSc patients and (J) between cells present in the ISG^low and ISG^high SCs, as indicated. Statistical significance was analyzed using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test and indicated as *P < 0.05, ****P < 0.0001.