Cell-level transcriptomics approaches allow the analysis of gene expression heterogeneity in individual cells to study cell fate determination mechanisms. Dissociating tissues into individual cells allows for high-throughput genomic measurements, but spatial information about cells is often lost, and spatial histology technologies are advancing the study of tissue and cellular communication at an unprecedented scale.
How we provide cell-to-cell communication analysis services
CD Genomics leverages computational tools to obtain spatial information at the cell cluster level through data preparation, communication network construction, and result validation, combined with gene expression data at the individual cell level to identify spatial domains with coherent gene expression in spatial imaging (e.g., in situ hybridization). This allows intercellular communication quantification by inferring intercellular communication from gene expression data at the individual cell level, allowing researchers to better infer communication between cells located at different locations in intact tissues.
General process
Figure 1. General procedures for analyzing cell-cell communication in complex cellular systems. (Shao X., et al., 2020)
- Perform pre-processing such as dissection of samples (human, mouse).
- The prepared samples are subjected to cell-level RNA sequencing analysis to obtain transcriptome data from individual cells, in preparation for the construction of intercellular communication networks.
- In combination with statistical analysis, cell-gene matrices generated by the protocol and cell-cell linkage matrices derived from the communication network were integrated to study cell-cell communication at individual-cell resolution.
- Validation is performed for inferred cell-cell communication.
We do better
- Mapping between gene expression data at the individual cell level and spatial data
- Infer spatial distances between individual cells
- Quantitatively compare spatial gene expression patterns
- Reconstruct spatial cell-cell communication
- Estimate the spatial extent of specific types of intercellular signaling
- Identify gene pairs that may regulate each other between cells
Practical applications
With CD Genomics' RNA sequencing at the level of individual cells data-based cell-cell communication analysis services, researchers can elucidate physiological processes such as embryogenesis, homeostasis, and organogenesis, understand the pathogenesis and progression of diseases such as cancer, liver disease, and inflammation, or study the underlying mechanisms of pharmacology and drug resistance, which may provide insights into new therapeutic strategies and targets.