Fig. 2: The spatial cellular and molecular features in GC with varying TLS status.

a H&E staining sections of five GC tissues, including dTLS-GC (n = 1), pTLS-GC (n = 2), and iTLS-GC (n = 2). The structure of the tumor (marked as “Tumor”), the muscle layer (indicated by “Muscle layer”), and the normal gastric mucosa (noted as “Normal gastric mucosa”), and the TLSs were marked with red triangles. b UMAP plot showing the spatial transcriptomics (ST) clusters (C1–C13) distribution by integration of all spatial spots from five GC samples. c Heatmap displaying the expression levels of signature genes across the 13 ST clusters. d Spatial feature plot showing the spatial distribution of 13 ST clusters within tissue sections of five GC samples. e Spatial feature plot showing malignant score within tissue sections of five GC samples, with red indicating a high degree of malignancy. f Spatial feature plot displaying the spatial distribution of 11 major cell types, including mEPI, bEPI, Fib, Endo, Myeloid cells, Mast cells, Plasma cells, BLC, MK167⁺ BLC, TLC, and MK167⁺ TLC in one iTLS-GC, colored by cell-type signature abundance. g Boxplot representing the proportion of each ST cluster from dTLS-GC (n = 1), pTLS-GC (n = 2), and iTLS-GC (n = 2). h Heatmap showing the correlation coefficient of spatial abundance between 11 major cell types and TLS.