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  • TECHNOLOGY FEATURE

How to make spatial maps of gene activity — down to the cellular level

Computational and experimental methods are bringing researchers closer to their goal of revealing exactly where in a cell or tissue each gene is expressed.
  1. Michael Eisenstein

    1. Michael Eisenstein is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Super-resolved spatial transcriptomics of a human ileum

Gene-expression data captured using an array-based method for spatial transcriptomics, overlaid on a stained section of human gut tissue. Credit: Ludvig Bergenstråhle

Under a microscope, mammalian tissues reveal their intricate and elegant architectures. But if you look at the same tissue after tumour formation, you will see bedlam. Itai Yanai, a computational biologist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, is trying to find order in this chaos. “There is a particular logic to how things are arranged, and spatial transcriptomics is helping us see that,” he says.

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Nature 606, 1036-1038 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01743-7

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