The cellular interaction modules of sub-clusters of T cells, neutrophils and tumor epithelial cells.
A. Circle plots showing the interacting networks between epithelial cell sub-clusters and T cell sub-clusters via the pathway of ALCAM, by comparing ADC and SCC. B. Circle plots simplified from A to show the interactions among target cell clusters via ALCAM pathway. C. Circle plots showing the interacting networks between epithelial cell sub-clusters and T cell sub-clusters via the pathway of MHC-II, by comparing ADC and SCC. D. Circle plots simplified from C to show the interactions among target cell clusters via MHC-II pathway. From A to D, The direction of each arrow shows the regulation from outputting cells to incoming cells. The width of the each line shows the predicted weight and strength of regulation. E. Bubble plot showing the probability of ligand-to-receptor combination of each pathway between two different target sub-clusters of cells, by comparing ADC with SCC. F. Circle plots showing Tregs regulate epithelial cells via the TGF-β pathway, which is solely activated in ADC. G. Bubble plot showing the probability of ligand-to-receptor combination of TGF-β pathway between Tregs and epithelial cells, by comparing ADC with SCC. The pathways of ADGRE5, CD46, GZMA and NAMPT are used as negative controls. H. Dual IF staining confirming that in SLC26A3high regions of CC tissues, more FOXP3+ cells are recruited than in SLC26A3low regions (left). The numbers of recruited FOXP3+ cell are quantified using histogram plot (right). Three individual samples with ROI were calculated and P<0.01 were marked with **, showing significant difference. I. Multiplexed IF staining confirming the interaction between CD6 (on FOXP3+ cells) and ALCAM (on SLC26A3+ epithelial cells) in the ALCAM pathway. J. Multiplexed IF staining showing that the recruitment of FOXP3+ cells towards SLC26A3+ cells might induce EMT (marked with E-cadherin) and increase the stemness (marked with ALDH1A1) of tumor cells, via TGF-β pathway.