DiffNicheNet for the same cell type in different time points?

[arunchakra]

Hello I was wondering what would the best strategy to use DiffNicheNet to find communication differences in two time points between the same 2 celltypes, I will refer to them as G and S? I was thinking i could encode these as two 'spatial' locations. What would be the proper way to do this. For example i can create two niches:

niches = list(
"180-270_Niche" = list(
"sender" = c("G_180-270"),
"receiver" = c("S_180-270")),
"OtherNiche" = list(
"sender" = c("G_0-90"),
"receiver" = c("S_0-90"))
)

then when i go on to define the spatial portion would this be correct:

spatial_info = tibble(celltype_region_oi = c("G_180-270"),
celltype_other_region = c("G_0-90")
) %>%
mutate(niche = "180-270 Niche", celltype_type = "sender")
specificity_score_spatial = "lfc"

spatial_info = tibble(celltype_region_oi = c("S_180-270"),
celltype_other_region = c("S_0-90")
) %>%
mutate(niche = "180-270 Niche", celltype_type = "reciever")
specificity_score_spatial = "lfc"?

I'm a bit confused because in the vignette the spatial component distinguishes between cell subtypes that are either in the specific spatial context or not, such as LSECs_portal vs LSECs_central. Similarly I am differentiating between "G_180-270" and "G_0-90". However the big difference is that LSECs_central is not in the original niches list whereas I do have G_0-90 in teh original niches list.

If you could offer your thoughts on the best approach please let me know.