Preserving Spatial Insights

For many diseases, spatial information can unlock new horizons in diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, it is limited by its reliance on fresh frozen samples, rendering archival tissue inaccessible for spatial profiling – until now. New tools allow researchers to access the full transcriptome of even FFPE tissue samples, offering new options for improving our understanding of cancer, neurodegenerative conditions, inflammatory diseases, and more. These images show i) a human prostate cancer FFPE tissue section with histological stain; ii) the same tissue section overlaid with spatial gene expression data; and iii) the same tissue section overlaid with spatial gene expression data and showing a spot clustering analysis. This highlights tumor heterogeneity by differentiating between gene expression profiles in different areas of the tumor.