The antibodies and CD1d tetramer used for cell-surface staining were as follows: α-GalCer-loaded APC-conjugated CD1d tetramer (cat#E001-4B; ProImmune), anti-NK1.1-PE (PK136; BD Biosciences), anti- CD4-FITC (RM4-5; BD Biosciences), anti-CD8-PE (53–6.7; BD Biosciences), anti-CD24-PE (M1/69; BioLegend), antip-CD24-APC (M1/69; BioLegend), anti-CD44-APC (IM7; BioLegend), anti-CD3εantibody-PE (145-2C11; eBioscience), anti-CD3εantibody-violetFluor 450 (17A2; TONBO Bioscience), anti-B220 antibody-PerCP/Cy5.5 (RA3-6B2; BioLegend), anti-IL17Rb-PE (MUNC33; eBioscience), and anti-CD19-PE (eBio1D2; eBioscience). All antibodies were diluted and used according to the manufacturer’s protocols.
A flow cytometric analysis (FACS) was performed using a Gallios flow cytometer (Beckman Coulter) or FACSCalibur cytometer (BD Biosciences), and the results were analyzed using the FlowJo software program (Tree Star).