Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41266321›Full record

ArticleNature communications2025

Systematic benchmarking of imaging spatial transcriptomics platforms in FFPE tissues.

Huan Wang, Ruixu Huang, Jack Nelson, Ce Gao, Miles Tran, Anna Yeaton, Sachi Krishna, Kristen Felt, Kathleen L Pfaff, Teri Bowman and 4 more

Abstract readComparative Study
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
82citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

82 citing papers in PubMed.

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22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

14 authors.

Huan Wang *Spatial Technology Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6773-8382
Ruixu Huang *Thayer School of Engineering, Molecular and Systems Biology and Program in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
Jack Nelson *Spatial Technology Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Ce Gao *Division of Rheumatology, Inflammation, and Immunity, Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Miles TranDivision of Rheumatology, Inflammation, and Immunity, Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Anna YeatonSpatial Technology Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Sachi KrishnaSpatial Technology Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7457-9700
Kristen FeltImmunoProfile, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
Kathleen L PfaffCenter for Immuno-Oncology, Tissue Biomarker Laboratory, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
Teri BowmanDepartment of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Scott J RodigCenter for Immuno-Oncology, Tissue Biomarker Laboratory, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
Kevin WeiDivision of Rheumatology, Inflammation, and Immunity, Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. kwei@bwh.harvard.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1821-167X
Brittany A GoodsThayer School of Engineering, Molecular and Systems Biology and Program in Quantitative Biomedical Sciences at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA. Britt.Anne.Goods@dartmouth.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5962-9570
Samouil L FarhiSpatial Technology Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA. sfarhi@broadinstitute.org.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1359-4568

Funding

Zhao - Proj 2P20GM130454 · NIGMS · DARTMOUTH COLLEGE · PI Shannon Soucy · 2019 to 2026
$27.2M
The Cellular Geography of Therapeutic Resistance in CancerU2CCA233195 · NCI · DANA-FARBER CANCER INST · PI JOHNSON, BRUCE E. · 2018 to 2023
$13.7M
Pathogenic fibroblast differentiation in rheumatoid arthritisK08AR077037 · NIAMS · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · PI WEI, KEVIN S · 2020 to 2024
$799k
Broad Institute SPARC grantNCI NIH HHS U2C CA233195NIAMS NIH HHS K08 AR077037NIGMS NIH HHS P20 GM130454U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) NIGMS, P20GM130454
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Emerging imaging spatial transcriptomics (iST) platforms and coupled analytical methods can recover cell-to-cell interactions, groups of spatially covarying genes, and gene signatures associated with pathological features, and are thus particularly well-suited for applications in formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues. Here, we benchmark the performance of three commercial iST platforms-10X Xenium, Vizgen MERSCOPE, and Nanostring CosMx-on serial sections from tissue microarrays (TMAs) containing 17 tumor and 16 normal tissue types for both relative technical and biological performance. On matched genes, we find that Xenium consistently generates higher transcript counts per gene without sacrificing specificity. Xenium and CosMx measure RNA transcripts in concordance with orthogonal single-cell transcriptomics. All three platforms can perform spatially resolved cell typing with varying degrees of sub-clustering capabilities, with Xenium and CosMx finding slightly more clusters than MERSCOPE, albeit with different false discovery rates and cell segmentation error frequencies. Taken together, our analyses provide a comprehensive benchmark to guide the choice of iST method as researchers design studies with precious samples in this rapidly evolving field.

Indexed as

Spatial TranscriptomicsTissue Array AnalysisHumansNeoplasmsParaffin EmbeddingSingle-Cell AnalysisTissue Fixation

Identifiers

PMID41266321
PMCPMC12635344

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.