Cited by 200Single-cell and spatial transcriptomicsGene Regulatory Network AnalysisBioinformatics and Genomic Networks

The landscape of cell–cell communication through single-cell transcriptomics

Open access
Almet, Axel A., Cang, Zixuan, Jin, Suoqin, Nie, Qing·2021·Current Opinion in Systems Biology

Abstract

Cell-cell communication is a fundamental process that shapes biological tissue. Historically, studies of cell-cell communication have been feasible for one or two cell types and a few genes. With the emergence of single-cell transcriptomics, we are now able to examine the genetic profiles of individual cells at unprecedented scale and depth. The availability of such data presents an exciting opportunity to construct a more comprehensive description of cell-cell communication. This review discusses the recent explosion of methods that have been developed to infer cell-cell communication from non-spatial and spatial single-cell transcriptomics, two promising technologies which have complementary strengths and limitations. We propose several avenues to propel this rapidly expanding field forward in meaningful ways.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.coisb.2021.03.007

Cites

56 of 56 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • A considerable proportion of ligand-receptor interactions remains completely uncharacterised.

    “Although many ligand-receptor (LR) interactions have been experimentally validated, a considerable proportion remains completely uncharacterised, reflecting the challenge to resolve intercellular communications networks [5], particularly within complex and heterogeneous tissue environments.”

    From Quantitative profiling of lifespan-dependent cell-cell communication potential reveals dynamic ligand-receptor network shifts across mouse tissues (2026) · cites this paper as [5]

    The 'Inferring CCC from single-cell genomics data' section discusses why transcriptomic methods can overestimate communication, and 'A summary of the different methods for CCC' refers to known ligand–receptor interactions. Neither states that a considerable proportion of ligand–receptor interactions is completely uncharacterised. Searches for uncharacterised interactions and incomplete ligand–receptor catalogs found no passage supporting that point; page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.73)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. [30]Armingol E, “ Inferring the spatial code of cell-cell interactions and communication across a whole animal body Graphical abstract,” bioRxiv, p. 2020.11.22.392217, 2020.
  2. [34]Cabello-Aguilar S, Alame M, Kon-Sun-Tack F, Fau C, Lacroix M, and Colinge J, “ SingleCellSignalR: inference of intercellular networks from single-cell transcriptomics,” Nucleic Acids Res, pp. 1– 12, 2020, doi: 10.1093/nar/gkaa183. 32196115 PMC7261168 · DOI
  3. [42]Cheng J, Zhang J, Wu Z, and Sun X, “ Inferring microenvironmental regulation of gene expression from single-cell RNA sequencing data using scMLnet with an application to SARS-CoV-2 receptor gene,” Briefings Bioinforma. (Under Rev, 2020. PMC7799217 33341869

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Almet, A. A., Cang, Z., Jin, S., & Nie, Q.
Affiliations
University of California, Irvine (US)
Corresponding author
Nie, Qing
Venue
Current Opinion in Systems Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-06
Volume
26
Pages
12-23
ISSN
2452-3100 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3146817258
Cited by
197
References
54
Citations by year
2026: 34 · 2025: 38 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 9
FWCI
3.36
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Current Opinion in Systems Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
  • Simons Foundation (594598)
  • National Science Foundation (DMS1763272)
  • National Institutes of Health (U01AR073159)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gene Regulatory Network Analysis
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bioinformatics and Genomic Networks
Keywords
intercellular communication, single-cell transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics, cell-to-cell communication, tissue organization

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review