{"title":"SpotSweeper: spatially aware quality control for spatial transcriptomics.","authors":"Michael Totty, Stephanie C Hicks, Boyi Guo","doi":"10.1038/s41592-025-02713-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Quality control (QC) is a crucial step to ensure the reliability of data obtained from RNA sequencing experiments, including spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT). Existing QC approaches for SRT that have been adopted from single-cell or single-nucleus RNA sequencing methods are confounded by spatial biology and are inappropriate for SRT data. In addition, no methods currently exist for identifying histological tissue artifacts that are unique to SRT. Here, we introduce SpotSweeper, a spatially aware QC method that leverages local neighborhoods to correct for spatial confounding in order to identify both local outliers and regional artifacts in SRT. Using SpotSweeper on publicly available data, we identify a consistent set of Visium barcoded spots as systematically low quality and demonstrate that SpotSweeper accurately identifies two distinct types of regional artifacts. SpotSweeper represents a substantial advancement in spatially resolved transcriptomics QC for SRT, providing a robust, generalizable framework to ensure data reliability across diverse experimental conditions and technologies.</p>","PeriodicalId":18981,"journal":{"name":"Nature Methods","volume":" ","pages":"1520-1530"},"PeriodicalIF":36.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nature Methods","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-025-02713-3","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/6/6 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH METHODS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Quality control (QC) is a crucial step to ensure the reliability of data obtained from RNA sequencing experiments, including spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT). Existing QC approaches for SRT that have been adopted from single-cell or single-nucleus RNA sequencing methods are confounded by spatial biology and are inappropriate for SRT data. In addition, no methods currently exist for identifying histological tissue artifacts that are unique to SRT. Here, we introduce SpotSweeper, a spatially aware QC method that leverages local neighborhoods to correct for spatial confounding in order to identify both local outliers and regional artifacts in SRT. Using SpotSweeper on publicly available data, we identify a consistent set of Visium barcoded spots as systematically low quality and demonstrate that SpotSweeper accurately identifies two distinct types of regional artifacts. SpotSweeper represents a substantial advancement in spatially resolved transcriptomics QC for SRT, providing a robust, generalizable framework to ensure data reliability across diverse experimental conditions and technologies.
期刊介绍:
Nature Methods is a monthly journal that focuses on publishing innovative methods and substantial enhancements to fundamental life sciences research techniques. Geared towards a diverse, interdisciplinary readership of researchers in academia and industry engaged in laboratory work, the journal offers new tools for research and emphasizes the immediate practical significance of the featured work. It publishes primary research papers and reviews recent technical and methodological advancements, with a particular interest in primary methods papers relevant to the biological and biomedical sciences. This includes methods rooted in chemistry with practical applications for studying biological problems.