Building a complete understanding of the vast complexities of biology, the secret of life, from the single cell to tissue, organism, and even the whole life tree, is where the biology field is moving towards. Technology advancements in multi-omics approaches provide a feasible foundation for tackling that ambitious scientific goal. Spatial omics enable the profiling of hundreds to thousands of DNAs, RNAs, proteins, lipids, metabolites, and other biomolecules with high spatial resolution in the tissue context, providing unprecedented big data and new insights to understand fundamental scientific questions, therapeutic targets, and disease diagnosis and treatment.
Preparing high-quality samples or tissue sections for spatial omics analysis is the first gatekeeper to a successful discovery. Many pre-analytic factors such as sample collection, preservation, embedding, mounted section storage and handling, and analytic factors such as fixation, staining, and detection reagents application, affect not only the spatial omics assay efficacy but also the accuracy of the data interpretation. In this ongoing special edition series, JOH would like to collect commentaries, perspectives, reviews, guidelines, research articles, technical notes, protocols, and case studies on any aspect of spatial omics technology and research.
Specific topics may include (but are not confined to):
- Protocols for preparing specific tissue sections for Omics assays
- Guidelines of tissue quality control for different spatial omics platforms
- Research on the pre-analytic, analytic, or post-analytic factors that affect data quality and reproducibility
- Technical modifications that improve existing workflow and data accuracy
- Perspective or reviewing the current spatial biology landscape, technical pain points of different technologies, where the field is moving towards, and the role of histology may play.
