arrow
Return

GatorST: A Versatile Contrastive Meta-Learning Framework for Spatial Transcriptomic Data Analysis

delete2026-04-08
delete0
delete
OA
AI
Z
Zhenhao Zhang
Y
Yuxi Liu *
S
Song Wang
Q
Qin Ma *
Q
Qianqian Song *
卞
卞江 (Jiang Bian) *
DOI:10.1002/smtd.202600006delete
deleteOriginal
deleteShare
deleteSave
View PDF
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Recent advances in spatial transcriptomics (ST) have revolutionized the understanding of cellular functions by providing gene expression profiles with rich spatial context. Effectively learning spatial representations is essential for downstream analyses and requires robust integration of spatial and transcriptomic information. Although existing methods show promise, they often fail to capture local (neighbor-level) and global (tissue-wide) contexts, and methods based on contrastive learning often rely on augmentation strategies that introduce noise and instability. GatorST, a novel and versatile framework, explicitly integrates graph-based modeling with advanced meta-learning strategies to generate spatially informed representations of ST data. Locally, a spot-spot graph connects each node to its nearest neighbors, while two-hop subgraphs capture fine-grained spatial context. Globally, gene expression profiles are clustered to produce pseudo-labels, providing weak supervision for representation learning. An episodic training strategy inspired by meta-learning further enhances GatorST's ability to generalize to new spatial contexts, ensuring robust integration of local and global spatial information. Comprehensive comparisons with fifteen state-of-the-art methods demonstrate that GatorST consistently outperforms existing approaches in identifying spatial domains, imputing gene expression, removing batch effects, and inferring spatial trajectories. By integrating local spatial topology with global gene expression patterns, GatorST provides biologically meaningful representations that advance key downstream analyses.
Keywords:
contrastive learning
graph neural networks
meta learning
spatial domain identification
spatial transcriptomics
AI Summary

AI Summary

Key information extracted from the uploaded paper, including a brief overview, abstract, background, key highlights, visual analysis, and future outlook.

Journal

Small Methods cover
Small Methods
IF:
9.1
Papers:
4.3K
Citations:
2.2W

Organization

I
indiana university
Scholars:
761
Papers: 374
Citations: 0
T
the ohio state university
Scholars:
1.6K
Papers: 589
Citations: 0
U
university of florida
Scholars:
6.4K
Papers: 2.8K
Citations: 1
U
university of virginia
Scholars:
4.4K
Papers: 2.0K
Citations: 0
researcher View more organizations
Cited Papers

Cited Papers

Transcriptome-scale spatial gene expression in the human dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
err2021-02-08
err0
errOAAI
errKristen R. Maynard; Leonardo Collado-Torres; Lukas M. Weber; Cedric Uytingco; Brianna K. Barry; Stephen R. Williams; Joseph L. Catallini; Matthew N. Tran; Zachary Besich; Madhavi Tippani; Jennifer Chew; Yifeng Yin; Joel E. Kleinman; Thomas M. Hyde; Nikhil Rao; Stephanie C. Hicks; Keri Martinowich; Andrew E. Jaffe
errShare
errSave
Spatial organization of the somatosensory cortex revealed by osmFISH
err2018-10-30
err394
PREAI
errCodeluppi, Simone; Borm, Lars E.; Zeisel, Amit; La Manno, Gioele; van Lunteren, Josina A.; Svensson, Camilla I.; Linnarsson, Sten
errShare
errSave
Spatial-MGCN: a novel multi-view graph convolutional network for identifying spatial domains with attention mechanism
err2023-07-18
err13
PREAI
errWang, Bo; Luo, Jiawei; Liu, Ying; Shi, Wanwan; Xiong, Zehao; Shen, Cong; Long, Yahui
errShare
errSave
Spatially resolved cell atlas of the mouse primary motor cortex by MERFISH
err2021-10-06
err0
errOAAI
errMeng Zhang; Stephen W. Eichhorn; Brian Zingg; Zizhen Yao; Kaelan Cotter; Hongkui Zeng; Hongwei Dong; Xiaowei Zhuang
errShare
errSave
Museum of spatial transcriptomics
err2022-03-10
err419
errOAAI
errMoses, Lambda; Pachter, Lior
errShare
errSave
Slide-seq: A scalable technology for measuring genome-wide expression at high spatial resolution
err2019-03-29
err0
errOAAI
errSamuel G. Rodriques; Robert R. Stickels; Aleksandrina Goeva; Carly A. Martin; Evan Murray; Charles R. Vanderburg; Joshua Welch; Linlin M. Chen; Fei Chen; Evan Z. Macosko
errShare
errSave
Spatially informed clustering, integration, and deconvolution of spatial transcriptomics with GraphST
err2023-03-01
err115
errOAAI
errLong, Yahui; Ang, Kok Siong; Li, Mengwei; Chong, Kian Long Kelvin; Sethi, Raman; Zhong, Chengwei; Xu, Hang; Ong, Zhiwei; Sachaphibulkij, Karishma; Chen, Ao; Zeng, Li; Fu, Huazhu; Wu, Min; Lim, Lina Hsiu Kim; Liu, Longqi; Chen, Jinmiao
errShare
errSave
Matrix metalloproteinase-10 promotes tumor progression through regulation of angiogenic and apoptotic pathways in cervical tumors
err2014-05-03
err81
errOAAI
errZhang, Ge; Miyake, Makito; Lawton, Adrienne; Goodison, Steve; Rosser, Charles J.
errShare
errSave
Spatiotemporal transcriptomic atlas of mouse organogenesis using DNA nanoball-patterned arrays
errCell
IF0
err2022-05-01
err0
errOAAI
errAo Chen; Sha Liao; Mengnan Cheng; Kailong Ma; Liang Wu; Yiwei Lai; Xiaojie Qiu; Jin Yang; Jiangshan Xu; Shijie Hao; Xin Wang; Huifang Lu; Xi Chen; Xing Liu; Xin Huang; Zhao Li; Yan Hong; Yujia Jiang; Jian Peng; Shuai Liu; Mengzhe Shen; Chuanyu Liu; Quanshui Li; Yue Yuan; Xiaoyu Wei; Huiwen Zheng; Weimin Feng; Zhifeng Wang; Yang Liu; Zhaohui Wang; Yunzhi Yang; Haitao Xiang; Lei Han; Baoming Qin; Pengcheng Guo; Guangyao Lai; Pura Muñoz-Cánoves; Patrick H. Maxwell; Jean Paul Thiery; Qing-Feng Wu; Fuxiang Zhao; Bichao Chen; Mei Li; Xi Dai; Shuai Wang; Haoyan Kuang; Junhou Hui; Liqun Wang; Ji-Feng Fei; Ou Wang; Xiaofeng Wei; Haorong Lu; Bo Wang; Shiping Liu; Ying Gu; Ming Ni; Wenwei Zhang; Feng Mu; Ye Yin; Huanming Yang; Michael Lisby; Richard J. Cornall; Jan Mulder; Mathias Uhlén; Miguel A. Esteban; Yuxiang Li; Longqi Liu; Xun Xu; Jian Wang
errShare
errSave
Identifying multicellular spatiotemporal organization of cells with SpaceFlow
err2022-07-14
err56
errOAAI
errRen, Honglei; Walker, Benjamin L.; Cang, Zixuan; Nie, Qing
errShare
errSave
researcher View more