Life exhibits diversity across various scales, encompassing species, organs, cell types, and even molecular components within our bodies. To comprehensively comprehend this diversity, gaining insights into molecular functions is crucial. This involves measuring both the quantities and spatial distributions of molecules. This study introduces a novel technique, called antibody RNA targeting sequential fluorescence in situ hybridization (ARTseq-FISH). This method enables the simultaneous spatial profiling of both mRNAs and proteins within individual cells.
Xinyu Hu started as a PhD candidate at the Radboud University Nijmegen under the supervision of Prof. Wilhelm T. S. Huck since November 2017. Her research has been focused on understanding the fate decisions of stem cells. One major difficulty when studying fate decisions has been the lack of appropriate techniques, due to the requirement of high-resolution spatial information at the single cell level. Therefore, she started to work on the development of spatial multi-omics technology and the application thereof in studying dynamic processes such as development. Xinyu and her colleagues developed a spatial multiplexing technique to profile RNAs and proteins simultaneously at single cell level, called ARTseq-FISH (antibody RNA targeting sequential fluorescence in situ hybridization).