251-CellNEST: Cell-Cell Networks in Spatial Transcriptomics

Paper Talk · Nov 21, 2025 · 16m

The paper introduces CellNEST, a novel computational model utilizing Graph Attention Networks (GAT) and Deep Graph Infomax (DGI) to overcome challenges in detecting cell-cell communication (CCC) from spatial transcriptomics data, which is essential for understanding diseases like cancer. Existing methods often suffer from high false-positive rates and only detect single ligand-receptor pairs, while CellNEST accurately identifies both single CCC events and complex relay networks of communication by leveraging spatial context and pattern recognition. The paper demonstrates CellNEST's superior…