Vizgen and Ultivue Merge. Learn more

Resources

FICTURE: Scalable segmentation-free analysis of submicron resolution spatial transcriptomics

Yichen Si, ChangHee Lee, Yongha Hwang, Jeong H. Yun, Weiqiu Cheng, Chun-Seok Cho, Miguel Quiros, Asma Nusrat, Weizhou Zhang, Goo Jun, Sebastian Zöllner, Jun Hee Lee, Hyun Min Kang
bioRxiv (2023)

Abstract

Spatial transcriptomics (ST) technologies have advanced to enable transcriptome-wide gene expression analysis at submicron resolution over large areas. Analysis of high-resolution ST data relies heavily on image-based cell segmentation or gridding, which often fails in complex tissues due to diversity and irregularity of cell size and shape. Existing segmentation-free analysis methods scale only to small regions and a small number of genes, limiting their utility in high-throughput studies. Here we present FICTURE, a segmentation-free spatial factorization method that can handle transcriptome-wide data labeled with billions of submicron resolution spatial coordinates. FICTURE is orders of magnitude more efficient than existing methods and it is compatible with both sequencing- and imaging-based ST data. FICTURE reveals the microscopic ST architecture for challenging tissues, such as vascular, fibrotic, muscular, and lipid-laden areas in real data where previous methods failed. FICTURE’s cross-platform generality, scalability, and precision make it a powerful tool for exploring high-resolution ST.

Top