Fig. 6: ACE enhances IMC-based multiparametric tissue profiling.

a, Renal cortex tissue from a patient with polycystic kidney disease was used to demonstrate the application of ACE for IMC-based tissue imaging. Thermal-cycling reactions were performed on glass slides. b, Simultaneously measured IMC channels were overlaid to demonstrate the high specificity of ACE in spatial tissue protein profiling. c, After single-cell segmentation, dimensional reduction analysis with UMAP was performed to project cells on a two-dimensional space. Cells are color coded by normalized abundances of measured markers on the plots. d, Using the Phenograph algorithm, 18 clusters of cells were identified and color coded on the UMAP plot. These cell classifications suggested phenotypical heterogeneity in six main renal tissue compartments (encircled with dashed lines). e, The mean expression level of each marker was computed for each cell cluster and is shown as a heatmap. f, The identity of every single cell as classified by Phenograph was illustrated on the segmentation mask to generate a pseudoimage showing the kidney tissue organization by identified cell type. Experiments were performed in replicates to confirm reproducibility. Scale bar, 200 μm.