Cellular interactions are of fundamental importance, orchestrating organismal development, tissue homeostasis and immunity. Recently, powerful methods that use single-cell genomic technologies to dissect physically interacting cells have been developed. However, these approaches are characterized by low cellular throughput, long processing times and high costs and are typically restricted to predefined cell types. Here we introduce Interact-omics, a cytometry-based framework to accurately map cellular landscapes and cellular interactions across all immune cell types at ultra-high resolution and scale. We demonstrate the utility of our approach to study kinetics, mode of action and personalized response prediction of immunotherapies, and organism-wide shifts in cellular composition and cellular interaction dynamics following infection in vivo. Our scalable framework can be applied a posteriori to existing cytometry datasets or incorporated into newly designed cytometry-based studies to map cellular interactions with a broad range of applications from fundamental biology to applied biomedicine.
GrantsEuropean Union (ERC-StG, InteractOmics) Berlin Institute of Health Dietmar Hopp Foundation Lichtenberg fellowship Helmholtz Association Volkswagen Foundation Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ) BIH Clinician Scientist grant German Research Foundation grant ERC Advanced Grant SHATTER-AML Charite - Universitaetsmedizin Berlin Molecular Precision Oncology Program (MPOP) of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg ERC-PoC, Interact-ALL Heisenberg program of the German Research Foundation (DFG) The e:Med LeukoSyStem consortium (BMBF) HEROES-AYA consortium (BMBF) TEP-CC consortium (Bruno and Helene Joester Foundation) DFG Joachim Herz Stiftung ERC-StG 'iMOTIONS' grant European Research Council SFB-TRR grant Fritz-Bender Foundation Deutsche Jose Carreras Leukaemie Stiftung Hector Foundation Bavarian Research Foundation (BAYCELLATOR) Bruno and Helene Joester Foundation (360degrees CAR) German Childhood Cancer Foundation German Cancer Consortium (DKTK Call 2021-2023) M4-Award of the Bavarian Ministry for Economical Affairs, Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (CONTRACT) Bavarian Cancer Research Center (BZKF) (TANGO) Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Elite Network of Bavaria Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union Else Kroener-Fresenius-Stiftung (IOLIN) German Cancer Aid (AvantCAR.de.) Wilhelm-Sander-Stiftung Go-Bio-Initiative