Researchers have used visualization techniques such as microscopy to study the multicellular structure of tissues, exploring the structure and conformation of intracellular components such as DNA, RNA, and chromatin. This information is useful for assessing changes in gene expression and cellular function and can be correlated with disease status and progression. However, there remains the problem of not being able to map genomic information in cells or even tissues to spatial locations. And conventional tools are unable to capture this information effectively, making some important details in cellular mechanisms lost in the research process.
Figure 1. Tumor morphology of primary human colon cancer sample. (Zhao, T., et al., 2022)
We provide spatial genomics services
The relationship between cells and their relative positions in tissue samples is critical to understanding disease pathology. CD Genomics offers spatial genomics technology services that allow our clients to understand gene expression in the morphological context of cells, uncovering cell-specific gene expression information and thus exploring gene activity in greater depth. Our combination of microscopic imaging and RNA sequencing technologies enables us to obtain complete genomic data in cells at different locations on a slice from a complete tissue section. This allows our clients to observe which genes are expressed at specific locations in the tissue and to quantify their expression levels.
General process
Types of samples we can analyze
Species: human, mouse, rat, etc.
Tissue types: heart, lung, eyes, liver, kidney, spleen, stomach, testis, ovary, breast, lymph node, brain, intestine, thyroid, skin, pancreas, bone tissue, etc.
Sample requirements
- You will need to prepare fresh tissue in advance, take samples for isopentane freezing, and then OCT/FFPE embedding and dry ice shipping.
- You need to prepare at least 3 tissue samples.
Technology features and benefits
- Enables capture of DNA sequences in space from complete sequence tissue sections.
- Not only can genomic data be obtained within a single cell, but it is possible to compare changes in genomic information in cells in different parts of the tissue.
- Enables comprehensive phenotypic and spatial analysis of the tissue microenvironment and simultaneous visualization of multiple markers with greater sensitivity, resolution, and throughput.
- High histocompatibility, easy integration with other methods and tools for pathology analysis, and easy integration with NGS processes, with strong scalability.
- Preserves expression analysis of thousands of cells, enabling visualization of gene expression in tissue in situ.
- Highly multiplexable spatially resolved analysis can be performed.
We do it better
CD Genomics provides you with a versatile platform that integrates multi-modal spatial genomics approaches to increase your understanding of gene expression in a cellular spatial context. Can be used to quantify how cellular intrinsic and extracellular factors contribute to the process of gene expression. Differences in genomic spatial patterns can be used as diagnostic markers for certain diseases. You can measure all gene activity in tissue samples and map where the activity occurs with the technical services we offer. This will help to help you better understand biological processes and diseases. And we are already working on a wide range of applications in disease areas such as oncology, neuroscience, and immunology. We are still exploring the use of spatial genomics solutions in a broader range of biological research areas.
Reference
- Zhao, T., et al., (2022). "Spatial genomics enables multi-modal study of clonal heterogeneity in tissues." Nature, 601, 85-91.