Inferring somatic copy number aberrations from spatial transcriptomics data to study early cancer development

Researchers developed a computational framework that infers somatic copy number aberrations (SCNAs) directly from Xenium spatial transcriptomics data and maps shared clones. Applied to ovarian, cervical and breast cancer datasets, the method identified spatially coherent SCNA-defined cell populations and recapitulated known tumour-associated copy number aberrations and pathological states.