Lock and Key: Spatomics' CFP Technology

The ability to profile the comprehensive molecular states in single cells in situ is crucial for our understanding of cancer, neurobiology, and stem cell biology. However, existing single cell genomics and proteomics technologies are carried out on isolated and amplified biomolecules. Thus, they conceal the spatial relationships among biomolecules. Meanwhile, other in situ imaging based methods are limited by a small number of parallel analyses. To enable highly multiplexed single-cell in situ analysis, Spatomics has developed cleavable fluorescent probes (CFP) for comprehensive molecular profiling in single cells in situ. In this method, affinity probes, which can target biomolecules with high efficiency and specificity, are conjugated to fluorophores through a chemically cleavable linker. In the first analysis cycle, different probes labeled with varied fluorophores are applied to bind to their molecular targets in single cells. After fluorescence imaging and data storage, all the different fluorophores coupled to affinity probes in the whole specimen are efficiently cleaved simultaneously without loss of the integrity of any biomolecules. Upon continuous cycles of target binding, fluorescence imaging, and fluorophore cleavage, this approach enables the quantification of the identities, positions and abundances of a large number of different genomic loci, transcripts and proteins together in individual cells of intact tissues. This highly multiplexed single cell in situ analysis approach will bring new insights into systems biology, cell heterogeneity studies, molecular diagnosis and cellular targeted therapy.