MorphLink: Bridging Cell Morphological Behaviors and Molecular Dynamics in Multi-modal Spatial Omics.

Area of Science:

• Computational Biology
• Genomics
• Pathology

Background:

• Multi-modal spatial omics data offer insights into cellular behaviors in disease.
• Existing methods often overlook the interplay between cell morphology and molecular dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce MorphLink, a novel framework for identifying disease-related morphological-molecular interplays.
• To systematically link interpretable morphological features with molecular measurements in spatial omics.

Main Methods:

• Development and evaluation of the MorphLink framework on diverse datasets.
• Application of MorphLink to analyze transcriptomic heterogeneity and immune diversity in diseased tissues.

Main Results:

• MorphLink effectively extracts and links morphological features to molecular data.
• The framework provides transparent insights into cellular behaviors driving disease heterogeneity.
• Demonstrated scalability and robustness against cross-sample batch effects.

Conclusions:

• MorphLink offers an efficient method for integrative spatial omics analysis.
• Enhances interpretation of results for large-scale studies across samples and modalities.