Figure 2: Signalling entropy correlates with differentiation potency of single cells.

(a) Violin plots of the signalling entropy (SR) against cell-type (DEP, definite endoderm progenitors; EC, endothelial cells (mesoderm progenitor derivatives); HFF, human foreskin fibroblasts; hESC, human embryonic stem cells; NPC, neural progenitor cells; TB, trophoblast cells). Number of single cells in each class is indicated. Total number is 1,018. Wilcoxon rank-sum test P values between each cell-type (ranked in decreasing order of SR) are given. Diamond shaped data points correspond to the matched bulk samples. (b) Scatterplot of the signalling entropy (SR, y-axis) against an independent mRNA expression based pluripotency score (TPSC, x-axis) for all 1,018 single cells. Cell-type is indicated by colour. Spearman Correlation Coefficient (SCC) and associated P value are given. (c) Violin plot comparing the signalling entropy (SR) between the hESCs and all other (non-pluripotent) cells. P value is from a Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Inlet figure is the associated ROC curve, which includes the AUC value. (d) Violin plot of signalling entropy (SR) values for non-malignant single cells found in the microenvironment of melanomas. Number of single cells of each cell-type are given (B, B-cells; CAF, cancer-associated fibroblasts; EndC, endothelial cells; MacPH, macrophages; NK, natural killer cells; T, T-cells). Wilcoxon rank-sum test P values between EndC and MacPH, and between MacPH and all lymphocytes are given. (e) Signalling entropy (SR) as a function of differentiation stage within the mesoderm lineage. Differentiation stages include hESCs (pluripotent), mesoderm progenitors of endothelial cells (multipotent) and differentiated endothelial and white blood cells. Wilcoxon rank-sum test P values between successive stages are given. (f) ROC curves and AUC values for discriminating the progenitor and differentiated cells within the mesoderm lineage for signalling entropy (SR) and the t-test pluripotency score (TPSC). (g) Signalling entropy (SR, y-axis) as a function of time in a single-cell time course differentiation experiment, starting from hESCs at time=0 h (time of differentiation induction) into definite endoderm (which occurs from 72 h onwards). Number of single cells measured at each time point is given. Wilcoxon rank-sum test P values between the first four time points and 72 h, and between 72 and 98 h are given. (h) Signalling entropy (SR, y-axis) as a function of developmental stage in the differentiation of the distal mouse lung epithelium. Number of single cells measured at each stage is given. Wilcoxon rank-sum test P values between embryonic day 14 (E14) and all other stages are given. (i) Comparison of the SRs in c) (left panel) to the case where expression values are randomly reshuffled before computation of SR (middle panel). Right panels compare the corresponding ROC curves and AUC values. (j) As c, but now splitting the hESCs into cells from H1 and H9 lines, and including an additional independent set of 90 single hESCs profiled with a different NGS platform.