The emerging landscape of spatial profiling technologies

  • Nat Rev Genet. 2022 Dec;23(12):741-759. doi: 10.1038/s41576-022-00515-3.
Jeffrey R Moffitt  1  2 ,  Emma Lundberg  3  4  5  6 ,  Holger Heyn  7  8
Affiliations
  • 1. Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
  • 2. Department of Microbiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
  • 3. Science for Life Laboratory, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health, KTH - Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
  • 4. Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
  • 5. Department of Pathology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
  • 6. Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
  • 7. CNAG-CRG, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST), Barcelona, Spain. [email protected].
  • 8. Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain. [email protected].
PMID: 35859028 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-022-00515-3
Abstract

Improved scale, multiplexing and resolution are establishing spatial nucleic acid and protein profiling methods as a major pillar for cellular atlas building of complex samples, from tissues to full organisms. Emerging methods yield omics measurements at resolutions covering the nano- to microscale, enabling the charting of cellular heterogeneity, complex tissue architectures and dynamic changes during development and disease. We present an overview of the developing landscape of in situ spatial genome, transcriptome and proteome technologies, exemplify their impact on Cell Biology and translational research, and discuss current challenges for their community-wide adoption. Among many transformative applications, we envision that spatial methods will map entire organs and enable next-generation pathology.