Digital Spatial Profiling

Advanced spatial transcriptomics and proteomics tools to better understand drug and disease.

Understanding the changes that occur in tissue, in disease and in response to drug treatment is critical to answering key biological questions. We use a state-of-the-art NanoString GeoMX Digital Spatial Profiler platform for spatial tissue analyses in our laboratory.

Whether you are investigating mechanisms of disease or validating a drug target, or biomarker, it is critical to have the right tools to extract meaningful biological information.

Our Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP) platform will enable you to quantify and analyse characteristics within whole tissue sections or tissue microarrays to characterise cellular activity within a tissue microenvironment.

There is no need to sacrifice valuable information and use costly samples by trading low-plex spatial analysis for high-plex bulk analysis. We combine the best spatial and molecular profiling technologies.

Digital Spatial Profiling

From a standard tissue section on a microscope slide, we can generate:

  • Full transcriptome profiling of discrete regions of interest (ROIs) within tissues
  • Profiling data for hundreds of validated proteins from small regions of interest

Enabling you to evaluate the tissue heterogeneity in a rapid and quantitative way with spatial profiling in tissue samples.

Did You Know?

Nature Methods has crowned ‘Spatially Resolved Transcriptomics’ Method of the Year 2020.

Early on, GeoMx could capture around 100 mRNAs; now, that number is over 22,000, which shows how fast this field is moving.

Brad Gray, Nanostring president and CEO, Nature Methods, 2021

We use the best technology available to answer the key translational questions in drug development:

What are the Underlying Drivers of Disease?

  • Investigate differences, at a molecular level, within tissue
  • Identify novel targets and biomarkers
  • Identification of cell types within regions of tissue – linking to single-cell RNAseq data

What is the Impact of Therapy on Disease Biology?

  • Demonstrate changes downstream of target engagement in clinical and the pre-clinical model tissue
  • Monitor disease response and molecular changes over time
  • Identify mechanisms of resistance to standard of care and novel therapies
  • Highlight changes with combination options

Who are the Right Patients for Targeted Therapies?

  • Generate disease linkage data to help select indications and patient populations
  • Generate data to support combination options

Our DSP Platform can Support you with:

Any Sample – Acquire data from Formalin-Fixed-Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) to Fresh Frozen tissue

Any Target – Profile the whole transcriptome for RNA reagents from a single FFPE or Fresh Frozen slide. Assays are pre-validated and modular for extra flexibility should you need to cover a range of research needs

Any Region – Based on the biology of the sample, you can select different regions of interest to resolve tissue heterogeneity

Dr Michael Eyres
Lead Scientist, Spatial Biomarkers

Industry-Leading Expertise

Thanks to our DSP capabilities, we can deliver deep insights into:

  • Characterisation of complex and heterogeneous tissues to reveal insights that are typically lost in bulk sequencing analysis
  • Biomarker identification and molecular characterisation
  • Combination of DSP data with single-cell RNA-seq datasets for cellular deconvolution of Regions Of Interest (ROIs)
  • Investigation of molecular signalling between ROIs through receptor/ligand interactions

We use a NanoString GeoMX Digital Spatial Profiler platform for spatial tissue analyses in our laboratory. Combining the best spatial and molecular profiling technologies. This enables us to:

  • Generate whole-transcriptome spatial analysis and high-plex spatial proteomics data
  • Combine high-plex and high-throughput spatial profiling for rapid quantitative assessments
  • Offer a flexible solution that conforms to your ever-changing research needs

How it Works

  • Protein or RNA probes attached to photocleavable barcodes and hybridised in tissues
  • Fluorescent antibodies are added to aid in selecting regions of interest
  • ROIs are exposed to UV light, cleaving all barcodes in that regions of interest (ROI)
  • Barcodes are extracted using a microcapillary and sequenced
  • Quantification and analysis of sequenced barcodes
  • Downstream analysis such as differential expression, Single cell deconvolution and receptor/ligand interactions

Nanostring Certified

Would you like to quantify and analyse characteristics within whole tissue sections or tissue microarrays to characterise cellular activity within a tissue microenvironment?

Or answer key translational questions such as:

  • What are the underlying drivers of disease?
  • What is the impact of therapy on disease biology?
  • Who are the right patients for targeted therapies?

MDC is certified as a Nanostring service provider.

Medicines Discovery Catapult
NanoString Certified Service Provider

Reshaping Medicines Discovery...

It's ambitious, it's achievable

Our Experts

Dr Michael Eyres

Dr Michael Eyres

Lead Scientist

BIO  
Gayle Marshall

Gayle Marshall

Head of Biomarkers

BIO  

Speak to Us

If you are involved with medicines discovery in the UK in any way, we can almost certainly assist you.