Fig. 3

Ligand-receptor interaction and transcriptional regulatory analysis. (A) Overview of intercellular communication across different cell types. Lines indicate interactions between cell types based on the expression of corresponding receptors. The thickness of each line is proportional to the number of ligands expressed by the interacting (ligand-producing) cell type, reflecting the strength or frequency of potential communication. (B) Monocytes exhibited more extensive potential interactions with other cell types. (C) Ligand-receptor pairs mediating the interactions between high- and low-metabolic-score Neuroblastoma cells and other cell populations. (D) A heatmap displaying the regulon activity scores (RAS) for cells with high and low metabolic reprogramming scores was constructed. Rows represent different regulons, columns represent individual cells, and redder colors indicate higher RAS values, reflecting greater activity of the regulon in that group. (E) Scatter plots to visualize the transcription factor specificity rankings for cells with high versus low metabolic reprogramming scores. In these plots, the x-axis shows the rank while the y-axis indicates the regulon specificity scores (RSS), with higher RSS values suggesting stronger association of a regulon with cell type specificity.