Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42350375›Full record

ArticleNature communications2026

Integrative cross-sample alignment and spatially differential gene analysis for spatial transcriptomics.

Yecheng Tan, Zezhou Wang, Ai Wang, Yan Yan, Wei Lin, Qing Nie, Jifan Shi

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing 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

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Yecheng TanResearch Institute of Intelligent Complex Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.ORCID 0009-0007-1762-3246
Zezhou WangResearch Institute of Intelligent Complex Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.ORCID 0009-0003-3377-0327
Ai WangDepartment of Cardiology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Yan YanDepartment of Cardiology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Wei LinResearch Institute of Intelligent Complex Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. wlin@fudan.edu.cn.ORCID 0000-0002-1863-4306
Qing NieDepartment of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA. qnie@uci.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-8804-3368
Jifan ShiResearch Institute of Intelligent Complex Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. jfshi@fudan.edu.cn.ORCID 0000-0002-2471-0686

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China) No. 11925103National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China) No. 82070463National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China) Nos. 12301620, 42450192
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Spatial transcriptomics (ST) technologies offer rich spatial context for gene expression, with varying spatial resolutions and gene coverages. However, aligning and comparing multiple ST slices, whether derived from the same or different platforms, remains challenging due to nonlinear distortions and limited spatial overlap caused by tissue processing. We present CODA, an integrative framework for Cross-sample alignment and spatially Differential gene Analysis. CODA first learns a shared low-dimensional latent feature space across samples. Within the latent space, CODA performs global affine alignment, applies transformer-based feature matching to identify common spatial domains, and utilizes local nonlinear refinements via large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping, enabling a robust cross-sample comparison and extraction of spatial gene expression patterns. Benchmarking across various ST platforms demonstrates CODA's strong performance in alignment accuracy, computational efficiency, and memory usage. Through dual-color immunofluorescence experiments and enrichment analysis, we show CODA's ability to uncover spatially informative genes associated with normal and disease conditions. These results highlight CODA's broad applicability and effectiveness in ST analysis.

Indexed as

Gene Expression ProfilingSpatial TranscriptomicsTranscriptomeAlgorithmsAnimalsComputational BiologyHumans

Identifiers

PMID42350375
PMCPMC13303909

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Registered trials

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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.