CrossTalkeR: Analysis and Visualisation of Ligand Receptor Networks

Motivation Ligand-receptor (LR) analysis allows the characterization of cellular crosstalk from single cell RNA-seq data. However, current LR methods provide limited approaches for prioritization of cell types, ligands or receptors or characterizing changes in crosstalk between two biological conditions. Results CrossTalkeR is a framework for network analysis and visualisation of LR networks. CrossTalkeR identifies relevant ligands, receptors and cell types contributing to changes in cell communication when contrasting two biological states: disease vs. homeostasis. A case study on scRNA-seq of human myeloproliferative neoplasms reinforces the strengths of CrossTalkeR for characterisation of changes in cellular crosstalk in disease state. Availability and Implementation CrosstalkeR is as a package in R and available as a package in https://github.com/CostaLab/CrossTalkeR.