Clinical and Translational Values of Spatial Transcriptomics

Overview

Journal Signal Transduct Target Ther

Specialties Cell Biology
Pharmacology

Date 2022 Apr 2

PMID 35365599

Authors

Linlin Zhang

Dongsheng Chen

Dongli Song

XiaoXia Liu

Yanan Zhang

Xun Xu

Xiangdong Wang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The combination of spatial transcriptomics (ST) and single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) acts as a pivotal component to bridge the pathological phenomes of human tissues with molecular alterations, defining in situ intercellular molecular communications and knowledge on spatiotemporal molecular medicine. The present article overviews the development of ST and aims to evaluate clinical and translational values for understanding molecular pathogenesis and uncovering disease-specific biomarkers. We compare the advantages and disadvantages of sequencing- and imaging-based technologies and highlight opportunities and challenges of ST. We also describe the bioinformatics tools necessary on dissecting spatial patterns of gene expression and cellular interactions and the potential applications of ST in human diseases for clinical practice as one of important issues in clinical and translational medicine, including neurology, embryo development, oncology, and inflammation. Thus, clear clinical objectives, designs, optimizations of sampling procedure and protocol, repeatability of ST, as well as simplifications of analysis and interpretation are the key to translate ST from bench to clinic.

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