NanoString Unveils Spatial Organ Atlas During the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) Conference

NanoString Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: NSTG), a leading provider of life science tools for discovery and translational research, today announced the launch of the Spatial Organ Atlas, an annotated reference dataset of spatially resolved whole transcriptomes, providing a foundational knowledge base for researchers to quickly discover how organs function in both healthy and disease states, using the GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP).

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This kidney image represents a 5 µm FFPE tissue section from a 41-year-old man. The sample was visualized with PanCK (epithelial cells), CD10+CD31 (proximal convoluted tubules and endothelial cells), and SYTO 83 (nuclei). The sample was profiled on the GeoMx, using the Human Whole Transcriptome Atlas (WTA) assay. (Photo: Business Wire)

"The Spatial Organ Atlas maps the whole transcriptomes of the multi-cellular molecular machines that drive organ biology," said Joseph Beechem, Ph.D., chief scientific officer, NanoString. "For example, we have spatially resolved every major ion transporter system in the kidney, recapitulating 50 years of organ research in a single experiment."

As part of the Spatial Organ Atlas initiative, whole transcriptome profiles of Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) tissues were generated from non-diseased organs, using the GeoMx DSP and Whole Transcriptome Atlas (WTA) assays. The initial datasets include spatial transcriptome profiles of biological replicates for six organs, including the human brain, pancreas, kidney, colon, lymph node, and mouse brain. NanoString plans to add data from additional organs over time and intends for this publicly accessible resource to serve as a reference for understanding organ structure and function.​

The Spatial Organ Atlas can be explored on NanoString's website, http://www.nanostring.com/spatial-organ-atlas, through downloadable datasets, including images, sequencing data, and analysis results. In addition, interactive image browsers are provided to narrate whole transcriptome profiling analysis for select organs, beginning with the kidney and pancreas.

"Whole transcriptome profiling of the tubular and glomerular regions in kidney graft biopsies from a patient and normal controls allowed us to unravel previously unappreciated mechanisms of graft response to the alloimmune attack," wrote Paolo Cravedi, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Medicine, Translational Transplant Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and his colleagues in their recently published paper entitled, "The spatially resolved transcriptional profile of acute T-cell mediated rejection in a kidney allograft."