Intra- and inter-organ communications in aging and cancer: Local and global spatial perspectives

Area of Science:

• Cellular Biology
• Genomics
• Immunology

Background:

• Cell-cell interactions (CCIs) are crucial for tissue homeostasis, development, and immune responses.
• CCIs are altered in aging and cancer, remodeling tissue microenvironments and driving dysfunction.
• Inter-organ communication via signaling molecules impacts distant organ aging and cancer metastasis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review key ligand-receptor interactions in aging and cancer metastasis.
• To examine tools for inferring intra- and inter-organ communication in these processes.
• To highlight the role of CCIs in tissue remodeling during aging and cancer progression.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of single-cell and spatial transcriptomics data to map CCIs.
• Review of literature on ligand-receptor interactions in aging and cancer.
• Examination of computational tools for communication inference.

Main Results:

• CCIs are fundamental to tissue function and are significantly altered in aging and cancer.
• Dysregulated CCIs contribute to tissue dysfunction and disease progression.
• Ligand-receptor interactions play critical roles in both local tumor microenvironments and inter-organ communication.

Conclusions:

• Targeting specific ligand-receptor interactions offers potential therapeutic strategies for aging and cancer.
• Understanding intra- and inter-organ communication is key to deciphering complex diseases.
• Further development of communication inference tools is needed for this emerging field.