Multiplexed Protein Imaging
method
spatial-profiling
Definition
Multiplexed protein imaging measures many protein markers directly in tissue sections while preserving spatial location.
What It Gives
- Protein-level marker expression
- Cell positions in tissue
- Local neighbourhoods and cell-cell proximity
- Tissue architecture at single-cell or near-single-cell resolution
Typical Examples
- Multiplexed immunofluorescence
- CODEX
- Imaging mass cytometry
- MIBI
Main Limitation
The marker panel is predefined and usually modest in size compared with transcriptome-wide assays. This makes it powerful for validating known biology, but less ideal for unbiased discovery of complex or unknown cell states.
In Papers
- Zhang et al. 2026 mentions this class as spatially informative but limited in molecular breadth.