# SC2Spa: a deep learning based approach to map transcriptome to spatial origins at cellular resolution

## TL;DR

SC2Spa is a deep learning method that accurately maps cells to their spatial locations in tissues using transcriptomic data, improving understanding of cellular organization.

## Contribution

SC2Spa introduces a novel deep learning approach that outperforms existing methods in mapping transcriptomes to spatial origins and identifying spatially variable genes.

## Key findings

- SC2Spa outperformed other predictors in mapping single cell RNA sequencing data to spatial coordinates.
- The method is robust across various spatial transcriptomics technologies and resolutions.
- SC2Spa can identify spatially variable genes not detectable with previous approaches.

## Abstract

Understanding cellular heterogeneity within tissues hinges on knowledge of their spatial context. However, it is still challenging to accurately map cells to their spatial coordinates.

We present SC2Spa, a deep learning-based approach that learns intricate spatial relationships from spatial transcriptomics (ST) data. Benchmarking tests show that SC2Spa outperformed other predictors and accurately detected tissue architecture from transcriptome. SC2Spa successfully mapped single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) to Visium assay, providing an approach to enhance the resolution for low resolution ST data. Our test showed that SC2Spa performs well for various ST technologies and robust to spatial resolution. In addition, SC2Spa can suggest spatially variable genes that cannot be identified from previous approaches.

SC2Spa is a robust and accurate approach to provide single cells with their spatial location and identify spatially meaningful genes.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12859-025-06173-6.