PUBLICATION

Inferring spatial and signaling relationships between cells from single cell transcriptomic data

Authors
Cang, Z., Nie, Q.
ID
ZDB-PUB-200731-1
Date
2020
Source
Nature communications   11: 2084 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Cell Communication
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Databases, Genetic
  • Drosophila/embryology
  • Drosophila/genetics
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sequence Analysis, RNA
  • Signal Transduction/genetics*
  • Single-Cell Analysis*
  • Transcriptome/genetics*
  • Visual Cortex/metabolism
  • Zebrafish/embryology
  • Zebrafish/genetics
PubMed
32350282 Full text @ Nat. Commun.
Abstract
Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) provides details for individual cells; however, crucial spatial information is often lost. We present SpaOTsc, a method relying on structured optimal transport to recover spatial properties of scRNA-seq data by utilizing spatial measurements of a relatively small number of genes. A spatial metric for individual cells in scRNA-seq data is first established based on a map connecting it with the spatial measurements. The cell-cell communications are then obtained by "optimally transporting" signal senders to target signal receivers in space. Using partial information decomposition, we next compute the intercellular gene-gene information flow to estimate the spatial regulations between genes across cells. Four datasets are employed for cross-validation of spatial gene expression prediction and comparison to known cell-cell communications. SpaOTsc has broader applications, both in integrating non-spatial single-cell measurements with spatial data, and directly in spatial single-cell transcriptomics data to reconstruct spatial cellular dynamics in tissues.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Show all Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping