Fig. 6
Cellular communication and spatial cross-talk in the fetal kidney. a Schematic diagram of the signaling transduction regulation between NPC, PTA, and UB cells. The blue region represents the UB cell cluster, the faint yellow color on the top indicates the NPCa cell cluster, the deep yellow color denotes the NPCb cell cluster, and the orange color shows the PTA cell cluster. Structure chart on the left: the bottom indicates the spatial location of NPCs, PTA, and UB clusters. The bold arrows indicate significant ligand-receptor effects (matching score > 2 and P < 10− 2). The most important ligand-receptor pairs controlling UB branching morphogenesis and nephron progenitor cell proliferation are marked in red; b Spatial location of Notch2, JAG1, and NOV. The NPC/PTA cluster is circled in red, and the UB cluster is circled in black. c UMAP shows the expression levels of Notch2, JAG1, and NOV in the 15 spatial cell clusters. Scale bar: the white to red gradient corresponds to the gene upregulation levels. d Left, cellular communication between NPC and their distal differentiated cells. The size of the circle represents the matching score. The color corresponds to the P-value. Right, the spatial location of the cell clusters