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Updated: Aug 6, 2026
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Visualization, Quantification, and Mapping of Immune Cell Populations in the Tumor Microenvironment
Published on: March 25, 2020
H&E-Referenced Multiplex Immunofluorescence Interpretation in TMA Cores: Spatial Co-localization, Cell Feature
Jun Jiang1,2, Raymond M Moore1, Brenna C Novotny1
1Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN. USA.
Research Square
|July 17, 2026
Summary
We developed a framework to align multiplexed immunofluorescence (MxIF) and hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) images, enabling better interpretation of the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) and virtual H&E generation.
Area of Science:
- Histopathology
- Computational Pathology
- Immunohistochemistry
Background:
- Multiplexed immunofluorescence (MxIF) allows detailed tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) analysis but faces challenges with signal degradation.
- Pathologists traditionally use hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining for morphology and cross-reference it with MxIF.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a framework for aligning H&E and MxIF images for cross-modal analysis.
- To enable quantitative assessment of feature concordance and virtual H&E generation.
Main Methods:
- Image alignment using cell nucleus detections as anchor points via Coherent Point Drift (CPD) and graph-matching refinement.
- Evaluation on ovarian tissue microarrays (TMAs) with restained and serial sections.
Main Results:
- Consistent alignment performance achieved for both restained and serial sections.
- Aligned images facilitated quantitative cross-modal feature assessment.
- Generated virtual H&E images showed comparable cell populations to real H&E.
Conclusions:
- Cell-centric alignment supports integrative multimodal histopathology analysis.
- Enables spatial co-localization, cell feature validation, and virtual H&E generation for TMA cores.
