Loss of Blimp-1 selectively remodels the CAR T-cell transcriptome. (A-H) Transcriptome of CD8⁺ Mock and Blimp-1 KO CAR T cells subject to repeated challenges with ARP-1 cells. (A) Comparison of normalized counts of all identified genes between Mock and Blimp-1 KO cells with each point representing an individual gene. Genes that were significantly more or less abundant in Blimp-1 KO cells (fold change >1.5-fold; false discovery rate [FDR] <0.05) are highlighted in purple or blue, respectively. Dashed line shows equivalent expression in Mock and Blimp-1 KO. (B) Volcano plot showing the difference between gene expression in Blimp-1 KO and Mock cells. Genes that comprise the Gene Ontology term “GOBP_T_CELL_DIFFERENTIATION” (GO:0030217) are highlighted in red. Dashed horizontal line shows FDR = 0.05 and dashed vertical lines show fold change of 1.5. (C) Heat map showing z-score normalized expression of key genes related to T-cell memory phenotype (left). Heat map displaying FDR of genes shown in left heat map, with FDR <0.05 in green (right). (D) Normalized count data of Myc, Bcl6, and CD27 genes. (E) As panel C, but showing effector phenotype-related genes. (F) Normalized count data of Znf683 (Hobit) gene. (G) Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) analysis of GOBP_RIBOSOME BIOGENESIS (red: NES, 2.15; FDR, 1.50 × 10⁻⁷) and GOCC_PRERIBOSOME (blue: normalized enrichment score (NES), 2.30; FDR, 9.67 × 10⁻⁷). (H) Normalized count data of Adora2a (A2AR), Ikzf3 (Aiolos), and Sox4 genes. Graphs show means ± SD and different symbols represent different donors.