Spatial

Imaging-based platforms like Xenium® and MERFISH® visualize transcripts directly in cells using in situ hybridization for single-cell resolution, while sequencing-based platforms like Visium® capture RNA from barcoded spots and computationally map it back to tissue, trading some resolution for whole-transcriptome coverage. Key Takeaways Imaging-based platforms (Xenium®, CosMx®, MERFISH®) directly visualize a targeted gene panel in situ, delivering single-cell or subcellular resolution at the cost of whole-transcriptome coverage. Sequencing-based platforms (Visium®, Stereo-seq™) capture and sequence RNA from spatially barcoded spots, giving whole-transcriptome or near-whole-transcriptome coverage at lower spatial resolution. Two recent neurodegeneration studies used both approaches in the [...]

While single-cell RNA sequencing tells you what cell types are present in a tissue, spatial transcriptomics tells you where cells are relative to one another in a tissue. This distinction can change the interpretation of biological data. Key Takeaways Spatial resolution matters most when cell-cell proximity, tissue architecture, or microenvironment context drives the biology, from tumor margins to immune niches. Recent peer-reviewed studies show spatial context revealing cell states and interactions that single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) alone missed. iSCanGuide™ is the only guided, GPU-accelerated platform that unifies single-cell and spatial transcriptomics with direct pathway-level analysis, making spatial [...]