Properties of each CD8 ⁺ TIL cluster. (A) A heatmap of DEGs among the 11 clusters shown in Fig. 2 A. (B) Subpopulation of CD8⁺ TILs from MC38 tumor-bearing mice with or without Bpmel-SIY-OVAII therapy (n = 5 per group). The analysis is based on flow cytometry; all data are representative of three similar experiments. (Tex, terminally exhausted T cell; Tpex, progenitor-exhausted T cells); statistical analysis was performed using t test. (C) The percentage of each cluster in the control and SIY-OVAII TILs shown in Fig. 2 E. (D) Violin plots of exhaustion-related markers and naïve/proliferation markers for the indicated clusters. (E) The frequency of effector CD8⁺ T cells (CD62L⁻ CD44⁺ population) in the DLN on day 21 (n = 5 per group). (F) The percentages of tumor-infiltrating CD8⁺ T cells in MC38 tumors on day 21 (n = 4 per group). Statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s multiple comparison. All data are representative of three similar experiments.