Fig. 3: Injured PT are interacting with fibroblasts in a spatially dependent manner.

A Mean expression of two top ligands and their receptors identified by NicheNet calculated for the cell types comprising ME-5. B Illustration showing hypothesized cellular behaviors under distance-dependent and distance-independent signals. Cell A expresses a ligand while the expression of the receptor on cell B can be constant over the distance between Cell A and Cell B (distant independent) or changing over distance (distant dependent). C Fraction of Fibroblasts expressing Crlf1 and Notch3 over distance from the nearest Injured PT cell. Cells were divided into 20um distance bins and the fraction of expressing fibroblasts was calculated out of all fibroblasts in each bin. D Spatial expression of Clcf1 on Injured PT (gold) and Crlf1 (blue) on fibroblasts. E Zoomed-in image on the inset in (D) showing Clcf1 on Injured PT and Crlf1 on fibroblasts. F Zoomed-in image showing mRNA dots of the corresponding genes. G Antibody-staining of the Injured PT marker Vcam1 coupled with RNAscope evaluation of Clcf1, Crlf1, and Cntfr, the receptor for the Clcf1-Crfl1 complex. Staining was done on a control sample. The image is of one representative control sample out of two. A larger kidney area from this experiment is presented in Supplementary Fig. 13. H Same as in (G), measured on AKI sample. The image is of one representative AKI sample out of three. A larger kidney area from this experiment is presented in Supplementary Fig. 13.