Fig. 5

Ligand-receptor interactions affect tumor-infiltrating immune cells. A Pearson’s correlation analysis was performed between the ligand-receptor interaction strength and the abundance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells in the bulk RNA-seq data. B The ligand-receptor pairs that collectively influence DC and macrophage infiltrates in three datasets. C The proportion of tumor-infiltrating cells in 29 single-cell samples. D Correlation analysis of the 9 ligand-receptor pairs’ interaction strength and abundance of DCs in the scRNA-seq data. E The interaction strength and significance of two LR pairs (ICAM1:IL2RA and ICAM1:ITGAM) between DCs and other cell types. The significance was calculated by permutation tests. F Expression of ICAM1, IL2RA, and ITGAM in the CRC scRNA-seq data. Th17, T helper 17 cells; Tfh, T follicular helper cells; DC, dendritic cells; ECs, endothelial cells; DCregs, regulatory dendritic cells; mDCs, mature dendritic cells; imDCs, immature dendritic cells. ****P < 0.0001