10x Genomics, Inc. a life sciences leader focused on mastering biology to advance human health, announced the first commercial shipments of its Xenium platform for in situ analysis. Xenium is the next generation of targeted spatial profiling of genes and proteins at subcellular resolution. The platform includes a versatile and easy-to-use instrument, a diverse menu of curated, customizable and high-quality panels, and Xenium Explorer, intuitive software for interactive data visualization. Leveraging its industry-leading speed and throughput, Xenium enables subcellular mapping of hundreds of RNA targets, generating high quality data with high sensitivity and specificity to reveal new insights into cellular structure and function.
“We built 10x to deliver technologies to address the complexity of biology, and with the commercial launch of Xenium, we’re confident we now have the full set of solutions for the future of biological analysis,” said Ben Hindson, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of 10x Genomics. “We developed Xenium with a unique combination of performance advantages, which are resonating well with customers, and we strongly believe Xenium is the best performing system available for in situ analysis. It is yet another example of how we bring together our multidisciplinary expertise, R&D capabilities and relentless customer focus to solve hard challenges and enable our customers to uncover the deepest biological insights.”
Next-generation sequencing and imaging have produced dramatic data and fine-tuned the resolution of cells in action, but both fields have developed separately. The high cellular resolution of Xenium Platform enables researchers to assess the relationship between cellular structure and function, directly in tissue, without the need for sequencing — bridging the worlds of genomics and pathology.
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“We didn’t want just an instrument that performs an assay well today, but also a platform that will evolve over the next several years and continue to provide valuable insights in situ,” said Bill Flynn, PhD, Associate Director of Single Cell Biology at The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine. “Xenium appears to be that platform and is backed up by the detailed protocols, documentation and support that makes 10x Genomics stand out from others in this space. We are glad that 10x can recognize key opinion leaders and subject matter experts in their customer base and work with them to help develop a product that all customers will want to use. The data quality from the preliminary assays I’ve had access to speaks volumes about the platform design philosophy of the teams that developed the assay, hardware and software. We very much look forward to our continued work with 10x Genomics, and we are excited to embark on this subcellular journey together.”
“We are incredibly excited to bring the Xenium platform to TGen’s Center for Single Cell and Spatial Multiomics,” said Nicholas Banovich, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Single Cell and Spatial Multiomics at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). “The high throughput of the platform and flexibility provided by the distinct chemistry underlying Xenium will enable us to answer key biological questions, with particular focus on applications in pulmonology, neurobiology and cancer.”
Select key features of the Xenium platform include:
- Class-leading speed and throughput. Xenium has a very large imageable area and is the highest throughput In Situ instrument in its class. With Xenium, researchers can analyze the most tissue area, at single molecule resolution, in the least amount of time.
- Broad menu of gene panels. The Xenium platform offers a diverse menu of defined, validated, biologically relevant content with the capability to add in large numbers of custom genes. With the launch of the Xenium Analyzer, 10x Genomics is introducing two targeted panels, compatible with a broad range of fresh frozen and FFPE samples, which can be customized for specific research questions. 10x Genomics expects to introduce additional panels, specific to tissue type and application, in 2023.
- Compatibility with standard pathology, including H&E. Xenium is designed to leave the tissue morphology intact. This enables additional insights from the same tissue section post-run, allowing researchers to look at correspondences between the molecular data and the morphological images.
- Comprehensive onboard analysis. Xenium offers on-instrument primary and secondary data analysis, including cell segmentation, in parallel with the instrument run. This enables direct exploration of the data without more processing off-instrument, accelerating the time to result and greatly reducing the computational burden on customers.
- Xenium Explorer interactive visualization software. Today, the company also launched Xenium Explorer, its easy-to-use desktop software for interactive exploration and data analysis. Xenium Explorer leverages the platform’s exploration-ready output to enable researchers to immediately see results at subcellular and tissue scale. With Xenium, researchers also have the flexibility to use standard format single cell and new open standard spatial data outputs with community-developed analysis tools.
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“I was pleasantly surprised to see familiar file formats and data types I’ve been working with for years which allowed me to quickly dive into data analysis and explore,” said Flynn. “Making data accessible with performant, scalable and fluid UX/UI is a feat of scientific software development, and this solution leverages several fabulous open-source efforts. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the full rollout and what the software team works on next as the intersection of single cell ‘omics and microscopy grows.”
With the Xenium launch, 10x Genomics is the only company to offer researchers all three technological approaches for interrogating biology — single cell analysis, spatial transcriptomics and in situ analysis. The company’s Chromium, Visium and Xenium platforms can be used independently or as an integrated suite for higher resolution and scale. A recent pre-print demonstrated how the company’s combined technologies revealed important and previously inaccessible insights from a human breast cancer FFPE tissue, which were not attainable using any one method or technology alone.
“The commercial launch of Xenium caps off one of the most exciting and ambitious years of product development in 10 years of 10x,” added Hindson. “This reflects both the strength and power of our innovation engine and the talent and dedication of our team. We’re incredibly proud of the performance and differentiation of Xenium today, as well as our plans to unlock the full capabilities of the Xenium platform through our extensive product roadmap in the years ahead.”
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