以色列威兹曼科学研究所Ido Amit、Amos Tanay等研究人员合作开发出一项新技术，可通过对物理相互作用的细胞进行测序来解析细胞间交流。该项研究成果于2020年3月9日在线发表在《自然—生物技术》杂志上。

Title: Dissecting cellular crosstalk by sequencing physically interacting cells

Author: Amir Giladi, Merav Cohen, Chiara Medaglia, Yael Baran, Baoguo Li, Mor Zada, Pierre Bost, Ronnie Blecher-Gonen, Tomer-Meir Salame, Johannes U. Mayer, Eyal David, Franca Ronchese, Amos Tanay, Ido Amit

Issue&Volume: 2020-03-09

Abstract: Crosstalk between neighboring cells underlies many biological processes, including cell signaling, proliferation and differentiation. Current single-cell genomic technologies profile each cell separately after tissue dissociation, losing information on cell–cell interactions. In the present study, we present an approach for sequencing physically interacting cells (PIC-seq), which combines cell sorting of physically interacting cells (PICs) with single-cell RNA-sequencing. Using computational modeling, PIC-seq systematically maps in situ cellular interactions and characterizes their molecular crosstalk. We apply PIC-seq to interrogate diverse interactions including immune–epithelial PICs in neonatal murine lungs. Focusing on interactions between T cells and dendritic cells (DCs) in vitro and in vivo, we map T cell–DC interaction preferences, and discover regulatory T cells as a major T cell subtype interacting with DCs in mouse draining lymph nodes. Analysis of T cell–DC pairs reveals an interaction-specific program between pathogen-presenting migratory DCs and T cells. PIC-seq provides a direct and broadly applicable technology to characterize intercellular interaction-specific pathways at high resolution.

DOI: 10.1038/s41587-020-0442-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-020-0442-2