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Reconstructing the cell-cell interaction network among mouse immune cells
Somayeh Azadian1, Alireza Doustmohammadi2, Mohadeseh Naseri3
1Bioinformatics and Computational Omics Lab (BioCOOL), Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University (TMU), Tehran, Iran.
Insights
This study maps mouse immune cell communication, revealing hematopoietic cells use limited pathways while stromal cells use many. Key pathways like WNT, BMP, and LAMININ drive these crucial cell-cell interactions.
Area of Science:
- Immunology
- Computational Biology
- Systems Biology
Background:
- Cell-cell communication is vital for immune cell function and immunotherapy efficacy.
- Identifying ligand-receptor pairs is key to understanding these interactions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To reconstruct the intercellular interaction network of Mus musculus immune cells.
- To analyze communication pathways utilized by different immune and stromal cell types.
Main Methods:
- Utilized publicly available receptor-ligand interaction databases.
- Integrated gene expression data from the immunological genome project.
- Reconstructed a comprehensive interaction network of mouse immune cells.
Main Results:
- The network comprises 50,317 interactions across 16 cell types and 731 receptor-ligand pairs.
- Hematopoietic cells engage in fewer communication pathways compared to nonhematopoietic stromal cells.
- WNT, BMP, and LAMININ pathways are major contributors to intercellular communication.
Conclusions:
- This reconstructed network serves as a valuable resource for studying immune cell interactions in health and disease.
- Facilitates systematic analysis of normal and pathological immune cell communication.
- Supports research into emerging immunotherapies by detailing cellular crosstalk.
Abstract:
Intercellular interactions and cell-cell communication are critical to regulating cell functions, especially in normal immune cells and immunotherapies. Ligand-receptor pairs mediating these cell-cell interactions can be identified using diverse experimental and computational approaches. Here, we reconstructed the intercellular interaction network between Mus musculus immune cells using publicly available receptor-ligand interaction databases and gene expression data from the immunological genome project. This reconstructed network accounts for 50,317 unique interactions between 16 cell types between 731 receptor-ligand pairs. Analysis of this network shows that cells of hematopoietic lineages use fewer communication pathways for interacting with each other, while nonhematopoietic stromal cells use the most network communications. We further observe that the WNT, BMP, and LAMININ pathways are the most significant contributors to the overall number of cell-cell interactions among the various pathways in the reconstructed communication network. This resource will enable the systematic analysis of normal and pathologic immune cell interactions, along with the study of emerging immunotherapies.
