Spatial transcriptomics and multi-omics approach to decipher age-related tissue microenvironments and therapeutics in...

Conventional bulk transcriptomic approaches obscure cellular and tissue-level heterogeneity critical to understanding age-related neurodegeneration. While single-cell transcriptomics resolved cellular identity, it sacrificed spatial context - a fundamental limitation for mechanistic disease understanding. Spatial transcriptomics emerges as a transformative technology that preserves native tissue architecture while enabling genome-wide transcriptome profiling at subcellular resolution, establishing it as the essential bridge between molecular discovery and clinical application in aging neurobiology. This review synthesizes recent advances in spatial transcriptomics platforms alongside computational integration strategies for analyzing spatially resolved transcriptomic data. We study how spatial transcriptomics illuminates age-associated pathology by mapping cellular heterogeneity, microenvironmental dysfunction, and neuroinflammatory networks within intact tissue samples. Integration of spatial transcriptomics with complementary multi-omics modalities and clinical imaging establishes comprehensive signatures for early disease detection and patient stratification. We discuss the discovery and validation of spatially-resolved biomarkers that predict neurodegeneration progression, enabling precision medicine approaches tailored to individual aging phenotypes. Finally, we address therapeutic target identification derived from spatial microenvironmental profiling and outline aging-specific challenges in translating spatial discoveries to clinical implementation. This review positions spatial transcriptomics as indispensable for deciphering spatially regulated mechanisms of neurodegeneration and developing precision therapeutic interventions for aging populations.