Tissue imaging has become much more colourful in the past decade. Advances in both experimental and analytical methods now make it possible to image protein markers in tissue samples in high multiplex. The ability to routinely image 40–50 markers simultaneously, at single-cell or subcellular resolution, has opened up new vistas in the study of tumour biology. Cellular phenotypes, interaction, communication and spatial organization have become amenable to molecular-level analysis, and application to patient cohorts has identified clinically relevant cellular and tissue features in several cancer types. Here, we review the use of multiplex protein imaging methods to study tumour biology, discuss ongoing attempts to combine these approaches with other forms of spatial omics, and highlight challenges in the field.

在过去的十年中，组织成像变得更加丰富多彩。实验和分析方法的进步现在使得对组织样本中的蛋白质标记物进行高多重成像成为可能。以单细胞或亚细胞分辨率同时对 40-50 个标记物进行常规成像的能力，为肿瘤生物学研究开辟了新的前景。细胞表型、相互作用、通讯和空间组织已变得适合分子水平分析，并且在患者群体中的应用已经确定了几种癌症类型的临床相关细胞和组织特征。在这里，我们回顾了使用多重蛋白质成像方法来研究肿瘤生物学，讨论了将这些方法与其他形式的空间组学相结合的持续尝试，并强调了该领域的挑战。