Fig. 6: Spatio-temporal alteration in epithelial and fibroblast signaling patterns of pre- and postnatal gastroesophageal tissues.

a Heatmap of gene set enrichment scores of fibroblasts and epithelial cells of esophagus and stomach from embryonic to adult time points with specific pathways highlighted; column represents individual cells colored by tissue type and time point; colors in the scale bar denotes the z-scored enrichment values ranging from high (deep pink) to low (blue). b, c Heatmap comparing the overall (aggregated both incoming and outgoing) signaling patterns associated with both fibroblast and epithelial compartments in the esophagus (b) and stomach (c) between E19 and adult time points. The color bar denotes the relative signaling strength (row-scaled values) of a pathway across cell types and time points. The relative strength of a pathway is calculated by normalizing each row of values to fall within the range 0-1 and depicted as low (white) to high (dark brown). Colored bar plot on top depicts the total signaling strength of a particular cell type by summarizing all pathways in the heatmap. d Dot plot showing the expression levels of ligands, receptors, and modulators associated with key signaling pathways in both fibroblasts and the epithelial subpopulation of esophagus and stomach at E19 and adult stages. Dot size represents the percentage of cells expressing a particular gene; the color bar indicates the intensity of scaled mean expression levels ranging from high (red) to low (blue). Genes are color-coded based on the signaling pathways to which they belong.