Integrative spatial and genomic analysis of tumor heterogeneity with Tumoroscope.

Spatial and genomic heterogeneity of tumors are crucial factors influencing cancer progression, treatment, and survival. However, a technology for direct mapping the clones in the tumor tissue based on somatic point mutations is lacking. Here, we propose Tumoroscope, the first probabilistic model that accurately infers cancer clones and their localization in close to single-cell resolution by integrating pathological images, whole exome sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics data. In contrast to previous methods, Tumoroscope explicitly addresses the problem of deconvoluting the proportions of clones in spatial transcriptomics spots. Applied to a reference prostate cancer dataset and a newly generated breast cancer dataset, Tumoroscope reveals spatial patterns of clone colocalization and mutual exclusion in sub-areas of the tumor tissue. We further infer clone-specific gene expression levels and the most highly expressed genes for each clone. In summary, Tumoroscope enables an integrated study of the spatial, genomic, and phenotypic organization of tumors. In this article the authors develop "Tumoroscope" to map cancer clones by integrating pathology images, exome sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics. It reveals spatial clone patterns and clone-specific gene expression in prostate and breast cancer, advancing tumor heterogeneity analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]