An experimental comparison of the Digital Spatial Profiling and Visium spatial transcriptomics technologies for cancer research

BackgroundSpatial transcriptomic technologies are powerful tools for resolving the spatial heterogeneity of gene expression in tissue samples. However, little evidence exists on relative strengths and weaknesses of the various available technologies for profiling human tumour tissue. In this study, we aimed to provide an objective assessment of two common spatial transcriptomics platforms, 10X Genomics Visium and Nanostrings GeoMx DSP. MethodThe abilities of the DSP and Visium platforms to profile transcriptomic features were compared using matching cell line and primary breast cancer tissue samples. A head-to-head comparison was conducted using data generated from matching samples and synthetic tissue references. Platform specific features were also assessed according to manufacturers recommendations to evaluate the optimal usage of the two technologies. ResultsWe identified substantial variations in assay design between the DSP and Visium assays such as transcriptomic coverage and composition of the transcripts detected. When the data was standardised according to manufacturers recommendations, the DSP platform was more sensitive in gene expression detection. However, its specificity was diminished by the presence of non-specific detection. Our results also confirmed the strength and weakness of each platform in characterising spatial transcriptomic features of tissue samples, in particular their application to hypothesis generation versus hypothesis testing. ConclusionIn this study, we share our experience on both DSP and Visium technologies as end users. We hope this can guide future users to choose the most suitable platform for their research. In addition, this dataset can be used as an important resource for the development of new analysis tools.