Multi-V-Stain: Multiplexed Virtual Staining of Histopathology Whole-Slide Images

Abstract

Pathological assessment of Hematoxylin & Eosin (H&E) stained tissue samples is a well-established clinical routine for cancer diagnosis. While providing rich morphological data, it lacks information on protein expression patterns which is crucial for cancer prognosis and treatment recommendations. Imaging Mass Cytometry (IMC) excels in highly multiplexed protein profiling but faces challenges like high operational cost and a restrictive focus on small Regions-of-Interest. Addressing this, we introduce Multi-V-Stain, a novel image-to-image translation method for multiplexed IMC virtual staining. Our method effectively utilizes the rich morphological features from H&E images to predict multiplexed protein expressions at a Whole-Slide Image level. In evaluations using an in-house melanoma dataset, Multi-V-Stain consistently outperforms existing methods in terms of image quality and biological relevance of the generated stains.