OmicGlaze: Spatial Multi-Omic Mapping of Traumatic Brain Injury.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Genomics
• Molecular Biology

Background:

• Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability globally.
• TBI causes complex neurological complications with significant spatial variation in cellular responses.
• Existing methods lack quantitative spatial profiling of injury-induced molecular changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a workflow for spatial multi-omics profiling of the brain after TBI.
• To identify region-specific biological processes and gene regulatory elements involved in TBI.
• To establish a framework for dissecting neurological disorder mechanisms.

Main Methods:

• Developed OmicGlaze, an experimental and computational workflow.
• Systematically profiled spatial transcriptome and epigenome in mouse brains post-TBI.
• Utilized Spatial ATAC-seq for high-resolution epigenetic mapping.

Main Results:

• Identified region-specific biological processes including neuronal activity changes, cellular stress, immune response, and gliosis.
• Generated the first epigenetic map of TBI at near single-cell resolution.
• Identified Atf3 as a key transcription factor regulating injury-induced cellular stress.

Conclusions:

• OmicGlaze provides a spatial scoring system for TBI research.
• Spatial multi-omics analyses revealed the gene regulatory network in TBI.
• The framework is broadly applicable for studying complex neurological disorders.