Output result: receiving and sending cell

[m21camby]

Hi,

I have a question regarding output result. All output files come with column of each pair of cell type. I wonder which cell is ligand sending cell and which is receptor cell from divide by | ?

e.g. If interacting pair is DSG2_DSC3 and I check the value in the column T-cell | B-cell. In this case, does T-cell express DSG2 and B-cell express DSC3? or other way around?

Thank you in advance.

[akramdi]

Hi,

From the nature protocol paper:

"Importantly, interactions are not symmetric. In other words, when testing a ligand–receptor pair A_B between clusters X_Y, the expression of partner A is considered within the first cluster (X), and the expression of partner B within the second cluster (Y). Therefore, X_Y and Y_X represent different comparisons and will have different P values and means."

Hope it helps,

[mief]

Yes, this is true, thanks for the comment. In the specific case the T cell expresses GSG2 and the B cell cluster DSC3. In terms of sender/receiver, we didn't include directionality because in addition to ligand-receptor, we also include receptor-receptor interactions. But in the tables that can be downloaded from our website, we include information for each protein, whether it's a receptor or not, and for some of the secreted ligands, whether they are cytokines, hormones or growth factors.